<p>How much do RPI's professors care about whether or not a student attends lectures?</p>
<p>Depends on the class and size of the lecture. Some professors who teach lectures with 200 people don’t care, while others will. </p>
<p>Really there is no specific answer to your question without mentioning a specific class.</p>
<p>Ah, of course. Hopefully I can grok their individual attitudes about it before this fall. Thanks!</p>
<p>As a parent I have to ask why you would want to go to such an expensive college and be thinking about skipping classes before you even get there?</p>
<p>Hi 1214mom. I’ll probably end up attending most lectures anyway; I just don’t want to have to deal with ridiculous ramifications if I choose not to.</p>
<p>As for why I (or anyone else) would choose not to attend class, I’ll direct you to [1] and [2]. There’s more to it than that, but I can definitely relate to Lulu’s post and to at least a few of those answers on Quora.</p>
<p>[1]: [Advice</a> you’ve heard before and a story you haven’t | MIT Admissions](<a href=“http://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/advice_youve_heard_before_and]Advice”>Advice you’ve heard before and a story you haven’t | MIT Admissions)
[2]: [The</a> College and University Experience: How important is attending lectures in college? What are the advantages and disadvantages? - Quora](<a href=“http://qr.ae/RSNUA]The”>http://qr.ae/RSNUA)</p>
<p>What’s your major? Several of the freshman level engineering classes have in class activities that essentially mean attendance is required, but most upper level classes do not. It has been my experience that not everyone that skips class does poorly, but there is pretty decent correlation. More of the H&SS classes also require attendance in some way too.</p>
<p>Ah, thanks. Computer science.</p>
<p>Most comp-sci class lectures are just lectures and if you have previous experience programming most students end up just reading off the online slides, but there are weekly labs that are graded that you really should attend, but aside from those and test days for the first three compsci classes you won’t have to attend lecture. Same with most math classes. It changes for other classes though, ones like physics do have in-class assignments</p>
<p>My son who was a freshman at RPI this past year2011-2012 missed one class because of illness all year. He felt that attendance is his part of the deal and you generally get better grades if you go to the classes.</p>