<p>Yes
Yes</p>
<p>I developed a terrible habit of skipping classes my first year of college, and I didn’t really receive any kind of punishment for it. My grades were still good, and I never missed out on anything.</p>
<p>Mostly I’d skip because the instructor had no attendance policy and their class was mostly taught straight from the book or from powerpoint notes that were also on their website. They never really cared, unless they did have an attendance policy- in which case I wouldn’t skip.</p>
<p>It usually just depends on the class, the teaching method, and other commitments. Sometimes people are just lazy. Sometimes people don’t really seem to care about being in college to begin with. </p>
<p>Every semester my professors have always said the most busiest days of the year on campus will be the first day of school and exam day. Otherwise you’ll see those faces in class once and hardly ever again.</p>
<p>Not that I’m saying skipping is necessarily a good thing. Sometimes, some people can get away with it, but other times people need to really be focused on their studies and pay really close attention to lectures to understand what’s going.</p>
<p>b@rium-- that is probably what I would do, but I have had two classes now where I have had to cite the reading in essay exams-- from memory. I didn’t need page numbers but I needed to be able to quote info and attribute it to one of the books. And when writing papers, it helps to be familiar with the books so I know where to look for the quotes I need. Not to mention that you really needed to have done the reading in order to know what’s going on in the discussion sections, which I did go to. Otherwise I’d probably do the same, and may yet next year depending on the examination method. Hopefully I’ll just have better professors and it won’t be an issue.</p>
<p>Plus it’s just damn cold and wet here in winter, I’d rather stay home and read. :P</p>
<p>Good point on the weather. Sometimes I just don’t feel like getting up and walking around campus when it’s 15 degrees out in the morning…</p>
<p>I used to commute 35 minutes to school so if the weather was really bad- pouring down raining or dangerously foggy- I would sometimes skip my first class just to be on the safe side. Once it was so foggy I could hardly see out of my bedroom window so I slept in through my first class. When I went to school my friend told me she came within inches of losing her life because a huge semi truck randomly pulled out into the road right in front of her. It was so foggy no one could see- in these cases it’s definitely not a bad idea to wait an hour or so to leave.</p>