Calling all college students..

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rookie_j70's avatar
rookie_j70
Posts: 677
Feb 24, 2010 8:42am
Do any of you have instructors/professors that have an attendance policy. I go to a small community college and have a teacher who says if you miss 3 days you lose 10% of your final grade, miss 5 and you automatically fail. Had a friend who had a teacher (I never took her) who if you missed class wanted a doctors note. Other teachers will take points away if you are late or you leave early

I think that if you are paying for school, you should decide if you want to go to class or not. Also, its community college, many students work, and many others have kids.

So do any other college students have teahers with attendance policies? What is your opinion?
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bLuE_71
Posts: 226
Feb 24, 2010 8:46am
It's their class. If you don't like the policy don't take them. Do you think you can randomly miss in the real world without an excuse?
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pkebker
Posts: 760
Feb 24, 2010 8:49am
Almost all my professors have had some kind of attendance policy...
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baseballstud24
Posts: 547
Feb 24, 2010 8:55am
Attendance policies suck...but it's part of college. Usually the really big classes won't enforce it, but you'll find most of the smaller classes will.
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queencitybuckeye
Posts: 7,117
Feb 24, 2010 9:48am
If I were to teach, the class wouldn't be a rehash of material in the books, so one would miss class at their own peril.
ts1227's avatar
ts1227
Posts: 12,319
Feb 24, 2010 9:55am
I am a grad student who is instructor of record for a couple 2 hour courses, so I get to set my own syllabus (which is then looked over, but I have never even been questioned).

Since my class only meets 2 days a week for an hour at a time on a quarter system, the class only meets 20 times. Anything after 2 unexcused absences, or 10% of the entire quarter is 1/3 of a letter grade off of the final grade. (If you have an A and miss 3 times for no good reason, it's now an A-, 4 times is a B+, etc.)
ohiotiger33's avatar
ohiotiger33
Posts: 1,500
Feb 24, 2010 10:05am
Neither of my political science classes have attendance policies this semester. My public speaking class, and a couple of honors classes do. Usually it is between 3-5 days. A lot of classes I have had don't have policies, but give some extra credit for perfect attendance.
UA5straightin2008's avatar
UA5straightin2008
Posts: 3,246
Feb 24, 2010 10:14am
none of my classes have an attendance policy, but 3 out of the 4 have a "participation" grade. So, if you dont show up, you cant participate, thus a poor participation grade. kind of a hidden attendance policy, but i rarely skip class unless im really sick
jordo212000's avatar
jordo212000
Posts: 10,664
Feb 24, 2010 10:20am
Yeah I want to say about 80% of my classes (I'm a senior) have had an attendance policy of some kind. It didn't really bother me either because I was paying for the class, and I was paying alot, therefore I wanted to attend and get my money's worth.

But I agree with blue 71, grow up. You are almost out in the real world, you can't just skip work because you are hung over or want to play video games all day.
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Nate
Posts: 3,949
Feb 24, 2010 10:22am
A lot of my classes had sign-in sheets and such for attendance.
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fan_from_texas
Posts: 2,693
Feb 24, 2010 10:25am
None of mine had attendance policies, but most had some sort of "participation" grade, which was effectively the same thing.
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bamagirl
Posts: 154
Feb 24, 2010 10:36am
I am in an accelerated adult program, and I am only able to miss one class. More than that and it's an automatic fail. They are really hardcore about their attendance policies and being on time.

The classes are usually only 5 or 6 weeks long though, so that explains the need for you to be in class. You cover what normal students cover in a semester in 5 weeks so it is rough.
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Con_Alma
Posts: 12,198
Feb 24, 2010 10:43am
rookie_j70 wrote: ...

I think that if you are paying for school, you should decide if you want to go to class or not.
...
You do decide if you go to class or not. You also decide what your grade is based on the criteria the professor sets and how well you adhere to it.

You pay the University or College to hire someone who sets that criteria. You don't determine what the criteria is.
FatHobbit's avatar
FatHobbit
Posts: 8,651
Feb 24, 2010 10:47am
I don't remember any of my classes having an attendance policy. I think I had some classes with labs, and obviously you wouldn't get credit if you weren't there.
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cbus4life
Posts: 2,849
Feb 24, 2010 10:58am
As a grad student, i taught two undergraduate courses. I didn't have an attendance policy, but part of their grade was "participation," which was essentially the same thing as an attendance policy.
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I Wear Pants
Posts: 16,223
Feb 24, 2010 11:01am
A couple of my classes have had attendance policies. The punishment for missing a class should be the lost opportunity for gaining that knowledge or turning in/taking any assignments or quizes. If it was just a straight lecture and I can get an A on the exam for it anyway why would I go?

Most of the time that isn't the case but many of my freshman level courses were like that. I simply read the assigned chapters and if I understood everything in the reading assignment I wouldn't go unless there was something for points (a homework to turn in, quiz, etc). If there is even one point that I don't understand in the reading I'll go to class so I can glean that knowledge.
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cbus4life
Posts: 2,849
Feb 24, 2010 11:01am
rookie_j70 wrote:

I think that if you are paying for school, you should decide if you want to go to class or not. Also, its community college, many students work, and many others have kids.

No offense to you, but i am so sick and tired of hearing this line.

Yes, you pay to go to school, but your tuition also helps hire professors whose right it is to set policies in regards to determining your grade. Attendance policies are one of those.

Yes, some have kids, and some work, and things can be worked out with the prof, generally, in the case of emergencies or unforeseen circumstances.

You're a student, which involves attending class and participating. Hence, nothing wrong with setting attendance policies.
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raiderbuck
Posts: 1,623
Feb 24, 2010 11:24am
Most of my classes that had attendance polices were usually classes with real homework. Math, English, Economics, etc.,. You didn't want to miss Calc class because the Prof would go over the lesson and assign homework. Same for my English classes.

My lecture classes (history, Poly Sci, Psych) didn't enforce an attendance policy. Kind of hard to do that with 250 students in the class. Plus, most prof's put their notes online or followed a book. Attendance policies suck, but after a while you really don't want to miss class. It just puts you behind.
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I Wear Pants
Posts: 16,223
Feb 24, 2010 11:40am
cbus4life wrote:
rookie_j70 wrote:

I think that if you are paying for school, you should decide if you want to go to class or not. Also, its community college, many students work, and many others have kids.

No offense to you, but i am so sick and tired of hearing this line.

Yes, you pay to go to school, but your tuition also helps hire professors whose right it is to set policies in regards to determining your grade. Attendance policies are one of those.

Yes, some have kids, and some work, and things can be worked out with the prof, generally, in the case of emergencies or unforeseen circumstances.

You're a student, which involves attending class and participating. Hence, nothing wrong with setting attendance policies.
I agree except in the cases where I've seen people get As on all exams and assignments but because of attendance policies got Cs or worse. In those cases it's clear that attending class wasn't really needed for the student to get a firm grasp of the concepts taught. Of course those situations are pretty rare but they do happen.
darbypitcher22's avatar
darbypitcher22
Posts: 8,000
Feb 24, 2010 11:42am
most of my classes have some sort of attendance/participation grade worked into the final grade. I've really only ever had one course where there was no attendance policy.

On the other hand, I have these professors that randomly say I'm taking attendance 5 days out of the semester but I'm not telling you when in an attemp to get people to come to class. It still doesn't work
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I Wear Pants
Posts: 16,223
Feb 24, 2010 11:45am
I'd like to see statistics for class attendance in courses with mandatory attendance vs those without such policies. From my experience there isn't really a difference in the amount of students that do and don't come to class either way.
sleeper's avatar
sleeper
Posts: 27,879
Feb 24, 2010 12:31pm
A few of my classes have official attendance policies, but all of them basically force you to go to class, because the material is rather challenging, that if you miss a class you will probably fail.
SQ_Crazies's avatar
SQ_Crazies
Posts: 7,977
Feb 24, 2010 12:43pm
None of my classes have attendance policies but you pretty much lose 10% of your grade if you miss 3 or 4 anyways.
LJ's avatar
LJ
Posts: 16,351
Feb 24, 2010 12:45pm
fan_from_texas wrote: None of mine had attendance policies, but most had some sort of "participation" grade, which was effectively the same thing.
This.

The Prof's who didn't care always had a small quiz at the beginning of the class. The one's who did would bust out a quiz at anytime as well as expect you to respond to something at least once per class period.

I had other classes where I went maybe 10-15 out of 30 and got an A. Those were rare and usually were required liberal arts classes.
SQ_Crazies's avatar
SQ_Crazies
Posts: 7,977
Feb 24, 2010 12:46pm
I Wear Pants wrote: I'd like to see statistics for class attendance in courses with mandatory attendance vs those without such policies. From my experience there isn't really a difference in the amount of students that do and don't come to class either way.
Same here.