Opinion by Katelynn VanVekoven
Contributing writer
“College is so different,” Crystal stated. Crystal had just graduated high school but a few months ago and had come back to Kiowa to make some quick rounds of hellos and pick up a copy of her transcript.
I happened to catch her in the hallway to ask how school was going and if she liked it. “All you have to do is go to class and you’re pretty much golden,” she continued.
I always knew that I wanted to go to college. I had spent the last14 years, counting pre-k and kindergarten, of my life in school. What’s another four?
But that is the sentence that kept my attention, “All you have to do is go to class.”
I realized that wasn’t literally all you had to do, but I thought it would be a valuable piece of information and large portion of college.
My first year in college I hardly missed a class. I lived by those words and would only miss if I was on my death bed with illness or had an appointment that could not be rescheduled.
However, the more I went to class the more I realized others did not.
I began to think to myself, “Isn’t there an attendance policy? Will everyone flunk out?”
The questions began to run through my head each and every day I went to class until one fateful day I figured it out.
Most students (depending on the professor) are given four free days they can miss for whatever reason.
You slept in, your alarm didn’t go off or maybe you just felt it wasn’t necessary to attend class that day. But after those four days, the professor will take a letter grade off for each day missed.
Sounds kind of harsh, huh? Well, that depends on what kind of student you are.
If you are a dedicated, class-going student, that will sound rather nice to you. Four free days, woo-hoo. But, if your one who is rather lazy and doesn’t show up for class too often, that’s just not enough days for you.
How you choose to use those four days is your decision.
The key though is everything after that must be excusable. Sick, doctor’s note, family emergency, etc.
I have even met people (and I’m not going to lie; I’ve have done this before) who make friends sign the role sheet for them, in those classes that use them.
The key to skipping class is to figure out how the professor works.
Does he or she take role? If so, do they care about the role policy? How reasonable are they? How compassionate will they be?
There are many ways a student can skip class depending on the professor at hand.
Is this fair to you, to me, to hard-working students who want to achieve or the slobs who want to sleep in?
In figuring out how to gauge my professors, skip class or pass, I began to learn and understand the phrase I started out living by when I first came to college as a wee freshman.
The reason everyone tells you that you have to go to class is not because that is literally all you have to do, but it is all you need to do.
People don’t tell you to go to class because it’s how to pass; they tell you because it’s the only way to pass.
In order to learn, you have to be present.
Sure, you are going to have an occasional illness or family emergency or maybe even death of a loved one, but for the most part, you need to be present to take notes, correspond with the teacher and understand the material at hand.
You can’t pass a test you know nothing about.
Whether the attendance policy is fair or not doesn’t matter because if you don’t want to go to class you will find a way out.
What matters is whether or not you are willing to dedicate the time.
One year later I sit here at a desk, a sophomore in college, who has been that student who has tried her hardest to go to class under any and all circumstances, and the student who has used every excuse thinkable to miss.
I learned to repeat to my high school peers that same statement Crystal sold me on, but with a small twist:
“All you NEED to do is go to class.”