Am I the only one who is having a hard time attending classes!!!
Sometimes, some weird feeling hits me and makes me really nervous about going classes.
Or sometimes I just don’t want to get ready and leave my house.
What do you guys do to encourage yourself to go to class?
I promptly get over it, because we’re paying a lot to be there.
Knowing that I always feel really bad about myself when I’m skipping.
Same thing you do when you really don’t want to go to work. You go.
Nice guys!
You sound like you are suffering from depression. I suggest you seek counseling at the student health center. Otherwise you will be posting here in a few months asking for help in appealing your academic dismissal from college.
…I go to class.
The only time I don’t attend class (barring sickness, emergencies, etc) is when i can’t understand the professor’s accent AND the class follows a textbook. And even then I feel pretty guilty about skipping.
As an English major whose classes tend to be pretty small, most of my classes have a fairly strict attendance policy- Usually a maximum of 2-3 missed classes before it starts impacting your grade. There have been a couple times where I missed a morning class because I got very little sleep (I don’t make a habit of late nights) or because I mistakenly prioritized cuddling with my now-ex boyfriend. I aim not to do that kind of thing next semester.
If I am sick to the point where I wouldn’t be able to focus in class anyways and would possibly cause a disruption, I email the teacher and miss class. When I had a case of mono, I had documentation and the few absences I had were excused.
Try to go to class. It seems like there may be an underlying issue here rather than just laziness. Evaluate whether you’re studying something you’re actually interested in. I agree that it sounds like you may have some depression or anxiety. There’s no shame in speaking to a mental health professional and many people find them to be of great help.
OP: Your issue is more common than you think, and Tom is correct; please follow his advice and visit the student health center as soon as possible.
Seconding @TomSrOfBoston on his excellent post. Get checked out at the health center or with your family doctor. Make sure you mention the anxiety and your reluctance to get ready so you can leave your house. This may be a medical issue. If it is, you don’t want to ignore it.
Posting again to add, yeah, attendance policies in small classes are a big motivator too. I have one professor who takes two points off your final grade for every absence after the first one.
Also, my attendance was the worst my first semester when I was really depressed. I agree with others that there may be something more going on here.
Go to class, go to class, got to class. It is the first rule for increasing the odds of success in college (Malcom Gould). If you are experiencing interfering anxiety regarding attending classes you probably need counseling interventions to overcome these anxieties.
If I REALLY don’t want to go (which, for me, is NOT regular) then I don’t. Last semester was the only semester where that happened more than once, and it was from frustration over being in the wrong major.
If I kind of don’t want to go, then I offer myself an incentive to get me there. For example, I might tell myself that I can get coffee on the way. Coffee is not part of my normal routine even though I like it, so it’s an incentive.
Thanks guys! A lot of helpful comments. I really appreciate it…
In my mind, maybe I thought that not attending classes is not that big a deal. But the comment that university is like a small company really hit me hard. I will do my best, and get the most help from the health center as well. Thank you all 
There recently was a thread that highlighted an article quoting things that annoy professors about college students, and more than one mentioned students who don’t attend class then ask how they can improve their grade when they don’t do well. It doesn’t make sense that a student would pay thousands of dollars to attend college then not attend classes.
One of the things you are paying for is actual instruction and the opportunity for interactions in classes.
I have completed degrees and always attended classes. I loved that part of school the most. In more recent years I have taken a few graduate courses online for recertification. There were no “classes” to attend, and I would rate them as excellent online classes. Because I did the work assigned, I learned a lot. But with the online format you basically teach yourself and there isn’t the face to face interactions with the professor or classmates. I prefer the real brick and mortar classes by a lot.
In my experience, not going to class just once could begin an anxiety spiral. If I missed once, I’d feel uneasy about going in the next time. If I gave in to that feeling, then not going to a few in a row made me really anxious. It seemed less stressful to not go, but, in fact, that was snowballing the situation. It was really easy to quickly become “disconnected” from a class.
I learned to just GO unless I was really, truly too sick to attend. (Turns out too sick doesn’t happen all that much.) Otherwise, just go.
I am decades away from college now, and I still occasionally have those dreams where I’ve shown up for an unexpected test, or it’s the final and I don’t know anything, etc.
Last semester, I had a 10 a.m. class and then a two-hour break followed by two more classes at 1 and 2. The two afternoon classes were taught by the same professor, and they were both literature classes where we just sat there and discussed the readings.
A few times, I would leave my 10 a.m. class and just head home because I didn’t feel like waiting around for the afternoon classes. Sometimes, I’d wake up and skip all three of them.
I’d advise you not to skip unless you are really sick. Also, it can save your butt if you email your professors whenever you are sick. I know some professors don’t care for their students to email them about illness, but my math professor exempted me from an unannounced in-class assignment that I missed when I had a bad sinus infection. If I hadn’t communicated with her, I would’ve lost all the points and lowered my grade from an A to a B. That is another reason not to skip class: the professor can decide to do an in-class assignment or have a pop quiz, and if you’re not there that day, you are screwed.
Also, if your classes have a strict attendance policy, those absences might stress you out at the end of the semester when final grades are due. My English prof listed in her syllabus that more than three absences would result in a grade penalty. I think I missed six classes, but I still managed to pull an A- in both classes. Don’t create your own stress by skipping classes!
Not wanting to go to class on a regular basis and feeling anxiety and trepidation when faced with going to class was one of the early signs of my depression in college. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize it was depression until it was too late, and I ended up failing a class and having to withdraw from two others that I was failing that semester because I missed so much class (and attended really late if I did attend). So I agree that if you are regularly feeling anxious about attending class - so anxious that you dread it and really, really want to skip - that you should visit a counselor to talk it out.
But if it’s just about not wanting to throw on clothes and roll out of bed sometimes, haha, get over it. I’m laughing because I definitely remember that feeling, too. That’s pretty normal, and it doesn’t go away - some days I wake up and I just don’t want to go to work, either!
There are ways to help with that, too, for early morning classes: when I had an 8 am class, I’d shower the night before and wear sweatpants and a T-shirt to bed. That way I could basically roll out of bed, brush my teeth and go to class in what I slept in (we weren’t allowed to wear pajamas to class at my college). A more…hygienic way to do this is shower the night before and leave some easy, comfortable clothes right next to your bed, so you can roll out of bed and pull them on really quick and then amble across campus to class.
For afternoon or early evening classes, it helps to be out of your dorm room or spaces where you are comfortable to motivate you to go. So if you know you’d always rather take a nap than go to your 3 pm English class, just make sure you’re not in your dorm room after 2 pm the same days. Go sit on the quad or to go the library or hang out in a study space in the same building as your English class. That way, there’s no temptation to stay in bed or watch TV; you’re already out and closer to the class, so you might as well go!
I had a really stressful dream in which it was exam week and I realized I’d NEVER gone to my biology class… Will definitely avoid that situation!
I calculated exactly how much each class is costing me/my parents and I posted it in like 5 places all over my room so anytime I started getting loath about going to class, I’d see that, feel guilty and get my butt out the door. Late is better than never!!