<p>I'm looking to transfer schools. I also like to spend a lot of time pursuing research, reading on my own, etc..., and I'm a night person (2pm-7am type of schedule). I was wondering how much do most engineering schools care about class attendance? I was especially looking at Cooper Union which is very close to where I live.</p>
<p>I hate to be the bearer of bad news…but MOST professors expect the students to ATTEND their classes. My husband is an engineer and he says…plan to attend your classes. If you are not a morning person, try to schedule your classes in the afternoon/evening. BUT plan to be there…and don’t be surprised if some required course is ONLY offered in the morning.</p>
<p>And more bad news, fin aid regs require I keep attendance. I have no idea how big schools manage to track that. But I do know that on occasion, I’ve been required to supply attendance info to administrative offices.</p>
<p>It would be foolish not to attend class.</p>
<p>What the professor teaches in class is likely to be on the exam.</p>
<p>When I was in law school, I tried to self study a class, because the professor was boring and the subject matter was also boring, and got myself in serious trouble.</p>
<p>By the way, I would think that it would be very hard to transfer into Cooper Union.</p>
<p>It may not be mandatory, but class attendance is one of the learning tools that your tuition pays for. You learn by the following methods:</p>
<ul>
<li>Listening to the instructor’s explanation of some concept.</li>
<li>Discussion with the instructor.</li>
<li>Reading the book and/or other reading materials.</li>
<li>Doing problems, exercises, and projects.</li>
</ul>
<p>If you don’t go to class, you miss out on the first two, which can make it more difficult for you to learn the material in the course.</p>
<p>It is, but my grades and test scores are pretty good so I have some hope that I might get in (99th precentile/3.6-3.8 with 20 to 25 credits each sem). I’ve also had quit a good research exp that might result in a nice rec letter. Well, I would attend class as much as possible, and I guess getting up isn’t that much of an issue, but there are a couple slots in my schedule that I was hoping to devote to extra-curriculars only (such as research, reading, work etc…), that I wouldn’t be able to do at any other time, since most undergrads cannot just work in labs alone for safety reasons. Anyway, I’m terrible at taking notes, and a pretty bad listener overall. Even when I attend class, I have to borrow somebody else’s notes, or work with multiple textbooks, and nothing from my classes generally sticks out.</p>
<p>Many professors, especially in science and engineering, can’t care less if you attend their classes.</p>
<p>But skipping these classes would be just about the stupidest thing a student can do. It would take much more time for you to absorb and understand the topics/contents covered in the class by reading the textbook by yourself, and there are different insights and approaches provided by the professors not found in the textbooks.</p>
<p>Your parents paid tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege of having professors standing in front of you. Why waste the money?</p>
<p>With the spread of electronic clicker systems, it’s easy for professors to take attendance even in classes of 400 or more. Some profs throw in attendance as 5% of the student grade. This won’t affect a kid who misses a day here or there, but the chronic truants lose half a letter grade.</p>
<p>Why do you want to transfer? Is it because Cooper Union is free?(I think) It sounds like you are doing great at your current school.</p>
<p>My school doesn’t have engineering classes only liberal arts ones, and it happens to be free for me too, so it’s not the problem.</p>
<p>Cooper Union has had free tuition up until this year. They are considering instituting a charge for tuition next year. You do have to pay for all other costs…so it’s NOT free.</p>
<p>I’m sorry but my position stands. If you don’t plan to attend classes…don’t enroll in college.</p>
<p>You might want to work on re-orienting your body to “normal” hours. It’ll be great practice for when you join the workforce. Most of the engineering jobs I’ve seen start before 2 pm.</p>
<p>In addition, your future employer will also expect you to COME to your job everyday. You might want to “reorient” your attendance stance as well.</p>
<p>I’m going to give you the most straightforward answer: it depends on the professor. </p>
<p>Some professors take attendance. Some don’t. Some care. Some don’t. Some classes require attendance for success. Some don’t. You have to check out each individual class and professor in order to find out which ones are which. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, I don’t know about the college in question, so I can’t get anymore specific than that.</p>
<p>it depends on the prof. I had few that did… some held it against you and some didn’t. I missed a week of economics freshman year because i was sick in bed… it was towards the beginning of the semester and I didn’t know anyone in class yet. the day i went back he called on me to answer a question and I hadn’t done the work… and he called me out for skipping two classes. I talked to him after class and let him know I was very sick and it didn’t even occur to me to send him an e-mail… i was too busy puking and having a sore throat and sleeping all day. Young and dumb I guess. </p>
<p>During my one physics class the prof took attendance - he guaranteed you at least a C in the class as long as you showed up every day. I really had a hard time in that class so I was glad that safeguard was there. I accidentally signed up for Physics 2 without taking physics 1 first and spent a majority of the semester lost. In the end I got a C and I’m fairly sure that’s what I earned - but not missing a class definitely helped.</p>
<p>I had another class where my one friend only showed up on the day of an exam, and the day we were getting the exams back. i think he attended maybe 10 classes all semester and got a 98 in the class.</p>
<p>how are you going to get better at taking notes and listening if you don’t go to class? Do you want to sit in a job interview and tell them you are terrible at listening and taking notes?</p>
<p>The smaller the class the more likely the prof will take attendence. I’ve had large classes with profs that would send a sign in sheet around, if you weren’t there you’d loose 5 points for the day.</p>
<p>Thanks all for your answers. As I mentioned earlier, being a night person isn’t really the real reason I was asking the question. It’s more about being able to concurrently do a lot of research and other extra-curricular activities. I’m not sure why you are so upset thumper1. I have held many jobs, both part-time work-study positions and full-time summer ones, and they have been going great. I was just wondering if, given that a student stays on top of things, works at the same pace as other people in the class, turns in their psets on time and follows the syllabus, they could be allowed to skip some lectures. Obviously, I’m interested in learning as much material as possible, not using that time to chill out. This past semester, thanks to lenient attendance policies in some classes, I was able to carry out 25 credits, get in a lot of hours in the lab and hold 3 part-time jobs, with only minimal GPA damage (one letter grade drop in most classes, which resulted in a 3.7). I’m merely asking wondering if the same could happen at Cooper Union.</p>
<p>I teach engineering classes at a medium size university and class attendance is very important. Some of the reasons not already mentioned are in some classes students work together on projects or on in class homework problems (during the class period) If you are not there not only do you not get a grade for that assignment, you also miss out on the material learned (usually material not in the book) . Engineering is very lab intensive-- you will not pass the lab if you don’t attend. Lab work is usually done during the lab period, at least until senior project classes. When filling out job recommendation forms for students one question often asked by companies is about if the student attended classes regularly. Most employers don’t want to hire students who are in the habit of skipping class. I’m sure it depends on the particular class and professor though as others have mentioned</p>
<p>Guess we have a gald darn genius here. Do whatever you like. 20 credits in engineering should be a breeze.</p>