School-Age: Attendance Policies Suck

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Weapxn

Weapxn

Mikkelsexual
What is the point of an attendance policy in college? Seriously. We're paying thousands of dollars to come here. If we make an A in your class, then give us an A regardless of how often we weren't able to make it to class.

I ended up with an 88.97 in Spanish because of 4 absences. I really got a 92.97. Granted, the difference between an A and a B in my overall GPA is 0.06 (read: it doesn't matter at all, really), but still. An A would have gotten me onto Dean's List this semester, which I have now narrowly missed by 0.1. Lame.
 
Weapxn said:
What is the point of an attendance policy in college? Seriously. We're paying thousands of dollars to come here. If we make an A in your class, then give us an A regardless of how often we weren't able to make it to class.

I ended up with an 88.97 in Spanish because of 4 absences. I really got a 92.97. Granted, the difference between an A and a B in my overall GPA is 0.06 (read: it doesn't matter at all, really), but still. An A would have gotten me onto Dean's List this semester, which I have now narrowly missed by 0.1. Lame.
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I guess you didn't care enough about that to go to class.
 
We have an attendance policy at our school: you need to attend 80% of classes or else you can't take the final exam. Thankfully, none of our profs keep attendance, so it's never an issue. I'd say I attend somewhere around 20% of my classes...my profs really suck. :lol
 
I tend to get sick a lot, so it kills me that I can't just like show a receipt of medicine to get excused. It's retarded that teachers are all, "email me before you miss class." A. I don't anticipate being ill. B. You don't return emails until years later, so wtf is the point. :/
 
TheExodu5 said:
We have an attendance policy at our school: you need to attend 80% of classes or else you can't take the final exam. Thankfully, none of our profs keep attendance, so it's never an issue. I'd say I attend somewhere around 20% of my classes...my profs really suck. :lol
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Missing 20% of classes is a lot. I didn't even come close to that.
 
What's bull shit is how you don't actually have to go to all the classes to Ace a class some times. What the fuck am I paying for?
 
Class participation and discussion can be an important component of the learning process. In these cases, it's only fair to deduct points from those who don't participate.

Of course, the degree to which participation affects your grade should be indicated on the syllabus you get the first day to avoid any confusion.
 
One day at my intro to music history class not one person came.. the class size was about 15. :lol He was pissed.
 
totally agree, even moreso with objective courses. I wish I could've just tested out of a lot of courses, gotten credit, and not had to pay the whole fee of the course.
 
argon said:
Class participation and discussion can be an important component of the learning process. In these cases, it's only fair to deduct points from those who don't participate.
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Participation is it's own grade in almost all of the classes. I'm not talking about that.

Zyzyxxz said:
yeah its truly retarded especially if its a class I dont really need to be there for.
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It's even worse when all you do in class is redo the homework you were supposed to have completed the night before. What the fuck is the motivation to go when you aren't learning a thing in class because the material is so easy you learn it on your own the night before?
 
Weapxn said:
What is the point of an attendance policy in college? Seriously. We're paying thousands of dollars to come here. If we make an A in your class, then give us an A regardless of how often we weren't able to make it to class.

I ended up with an 88.97 in Spanish because of 4 absences. I really got a 92.97. Granted, the difference between an A and a B in my overall GPA is 0.06 (read: it doesn't matter at all, really), but still. An A would have gotten me onto Dean's List this semester, which I have now narrowly missed by 0.1. Lame.
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I got over 95% in my first semester freshman year Japanese class on all tests and quizzes. It was basically a review of my senior year Japanese class. I got a B+ in the class. Fucking pissed me off. But I learned my lesson. Went to essentially every class in the rest of my 3 years there.

Sucks but you'll get over it.
 
I agree that attendance policies are pretty dumb. For me a lot of my Professors don't physically take attendance, but they'll have these electronic quizzes throughout the lecture that count towards your attendance grade. I hate those more than simple attendance policies because you can go to all the lectures and still not get all the attendance points, which is just stupid.
 
I miss the days of being able to miss weeks of a Community College class and being able to easily pass with and A or B, some classes at least.
 
Skiptastic said:
I got over 95% in my first semester freshman year Japanese class on all tests and quizzes. It was basically a review of my senior year Japanese class. I got a B+ in the class. Fucking pissed me off. But I learned my lesson. Went to essentially every class in the rest of my 3 years there.
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And I bet you missed more than 4 classes to deserve that.
 
What's just as bad are classes where there is no attendence policy, but the prof will bait people into coming. I took a first year course on dinosaurs as an easy elective, and part of our mark was 3 pop quizes. At the end of a class, he'd sometimes allude to the next class having a a quiz, and often that wouldn't be the case. Asshole.
 
It does suck, but you chose to take the class at that school from that prof. and the rule was no doubt explained on the syllabus on the first day.

Personally, I'd have changed profs. That's a shit rule.
 
X26 said:
What's just as bad are classes where there is no attendence policy, but the prof will bait people into coming. I took a first year course on dinosaurs as an easy elective, and part of our mark was 3 pop quizes. At the end of a class, he'd sometimes allude to the next class having a a quiz, and often that wouldn't be the case. Asshole.
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In my math class, we had 5 tests grades, one of which was a "5-4-0". 5 points for answering a question at the end of class, 4 points for putting your name on the paper and 0 for not turning anything in.


The end of the semester came this week. Turns out, he didn't look at any of them and just asked to write down on a paper how many classes we thought we missed.
 
If your class is grading you for attendance/participation, go if you want an A.

If your class isn't grading you for attendance/participation, don't go if you think you can manage an A.

It's your own fault. No respected school is going to not grade your attendance/participation in a language class. A language class.
 
Weapxn said:
What is the point of an attendance policy in college? Seriously. We're paying thousands of dollars to come here. If we make an A in your class, then give us an A regardless of how often we weren't able to make it to class.
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So why would you waste your money by skipping class?
 
You have to keep track of your absences. If you're going to blow off class, you have to factor in that you might get sick at some point and really need a day off. If you're getting sick enough that you have four or more absences, or miss 20% of the class, then you need to go to the damn doctor.

Guess what? The real world is filled with equally bullshit policies and busy work. Get used to it.
 
I heard that one of the purposes is to ensure people in the US on a student visa are actually attending the classes they're registered for rather than just in the US looking to stay.
 
Attendance policy? Heh, we don't have anything like that for regular lectures. Sometimes there are certain things you have to do to pass (generally labs, but sometimes lectures as well) but these are always made clear at the start of the course. Otherwise the entire grade is pretty much in the final exam. But then again, I'm in engineering and wouldn't know how it is if I were to study a language or something.
 
sonarrat said:
One day at my intro to music history class not one person came.. the class size was about 15. :lol He was pissed.
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If a professor is pissed off at his class for not showing up, but no one is there to see him act pissed off, is he still pissed off?

That pop quiz and the information for the final he won't repeat says yes!
 
I only had one class this semester that evoked an attendance policy. Other than that, there is a minimum, and it's simply at the teacher's discretion. If you miss a lot of class, the teacher can let the Dean know, and he can decide to kick you out or not.

Honestly, if you're missing that much class without a good reason, you risk wasting the school's time, and lowering their average. There may be kids that are exceptions, but then again, there are people that are not exceptions, and just don't go to class.
 
Trevor360 said:
let me guess, you are fluent in spanish yet taking a beginner course
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Ha, no. I wish. I would've just tested out of all four semesters that I have to take.
 
I don't think your grade should necessarily be docked for missing classes, but pretty much every class I've had so far involves going over the syllabus on the first day, and the syllabus almost invariably says that there is a portion of your grade that is based on attendance/participation. It's right there in black and white, so if you choose to essentially give yourself a zero on that portion of the class, you shouldn't be mad when your final grade reflects it.
 
Here in Sweden its very chill. Im in last third year in high school and i have 30 % absence. No teacher cares, as long i make good on tests etc. OFC i show up for important lessons where we have discussions etc. I know that its the same on university.
 
I never had one professor take attendance (was in the engineering curriculum)

Some classes I skipped more than I went too, and still kicked ass on the tests. :lol

This was all many many years ago. College may have changed since I've been there.
 
^^^ I think it's around that number for me too. Luckily I only had one teacher who took attendance.

My only class on Fridays this semester was an Organic Chem lecture at 8:30. Didn't go to a single one :)
 
Most of mine had attendance polices. Usually you got 6 or so absences before they dropped you. I did have one Psychology prof though that didn't care except for test days and one group project. It was basic stuff so I just showed up for the tests and did my project and got a 94.
 
If you wanted to be on the Dean's list so bad, maybe you should have at least tried. I figure going to class would be the best step.
 
I always feel guilty when I miss class. I'm so lame :(

But the way I look at it, its like padding your grade. Classes that penalize you for bad attendance but don't reward you for good attendance are crap. But for some classes, ~10-15% of your grade is based on "participation" aka attendance, which are easy points.
 
KR3W said:
If you wanted to be on the Dean's list so bad, maybe you should have at least tried. I figure going to class would be the best step.
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Jeez guys, did he even say WHY he missed them? :lol

4 isn't a lot. I kind of agree that it's lame to knock down your score because of that, especially if you did so well. Obviously you shouldn't be out of class all the time, but if you manage a 92, knocking down to an 88 because of 4 absences? C'mon.
 
ianp622 said:
So why would you waste your money by skipping class?
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I don't really understand the point of these kinds of post that defend attendance as a requisite of education. If I can ace the class by reading the text book, and find the lectures dull, am I not getting my money's worth? I'm there to learn, or perhaps more accurately, to receive documentation that says I've learned so that employers will find me more attractive as a hire. In order to achieve that, I need to meet a certain criteria. For most, it's grades based on exam performance. If I do sufficiently well on the test, then I have learned enough of the material as per the instructor's expectations -- after all, I passed his test. If he wants attendance to be a necessary component of learning the material, then he needs to restructure his lectures to emphasize knowledge that can only be obtained through attendance.

For those of you stating that it gets worse in the real world, I fail to see your point, as it's comparing apples to oranges. In college, you're paying to go there. In the workforce, you're being paid for YOUR services, but only by the grace of the person who is your boss. If I want to take a three hour lunch, and think I'm entitled to one, and the boss says stop doing that or you're out of here, THAT'S the difference. If I don't like it, I'm free to shop around for a different job. However, if that's my work ethic, that might prove to be a difficult task.
 
The main reason for attendance policies is that they greatly reduce the number of students who get F's in the course. It is not in the university's interest to have students fail, because failing students take up slots in classes and admissions that could be used by good students. This is why attendance policies are primarily seen in classes for underclassmen and not upperclassmen, who are assumed to be responsible enough to manage their own attendance.

A secondary reason is that some material presented in classes cannot be feasibly or effectively tested on exams or homework. Therefore you are assumed to have learned that material only if you were present in class.
 
As much as I started to get tired of classes I knew I had an A in towards the end of the semester, you really don't have anyone else to blame but yourself. Seriously, it's a foreign language class. Part of the expectations for those is coming to class to speak in that language.
 
In my school, its usually 12 days then its an autofail.
Unless its a class that is two days a week, then its 6. >.>

I hardly use the full amount anyway. =]
 
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