Poll of the Day > Did you skip or attend more lectures in university/college?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Attendance was optional (thank god) so I definitely skipped more. Lectures were so useless.

Graduating next year, engineering.

I attended most. I also did engineering and for many of the classes it would not have been possible to miss the lectures and still pass.

Some classes, though, I absolutely skipped out on a good chunk of the lectures. I think I attended six Chemistry lectures in my first year because both the professors were terrible and a dorm-mate who was one year ahead of me gave me his notes from the year prior.
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I hated missing anything so I was there 100% of the time

I never thought I was smart enough to be able to skip lectures. Also hard to get recommendations or independent study if you don't have contact with your profs. Even more important in grad school, where you're pretty conspicuous if you're not there in a class of 5 or 10.

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attendance mas mandatory so i went to almost all of them. i think missing 4 classes was enough to a teacher to fail or drop you or something like that.

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I attended just about all my classes. I was paying good money for them, after all.
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i skipped uni so


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Attended most

Slept through a few
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I only skipped the lectures when I had to work.
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I attend all of them. Its either survive or drown in law and business degrees.

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Some classes I attended, some I skipped majority. It was nice when a professor would teach content directly from the textbook so you could pretty well take in the same content on your own schedule.

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Depended on the class.

My Psych classes were my major, which I'd picked in the first place because I was interested in psychology, so I'd try to attend as many of them as possible, was less likely to skip, etc.

But classes I was only taking to fulfill specific degree requirements I'd be much more likely to skip, especially if attendance wasn't mandatory and the professor provided a full syllabus on the first day of class (meaning I could show up for tests and knew when papers were due, and never needed to show up as long as I read the material on my own time).

Size of the class also played a role. I'd be more likely to show up for a class with 15 people where the professor was going to have a lot more direct interaction with students than one in a lecture hall with a hundred other people where the professor was more likely to have a TA teach for them.
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I attended all unless there was an emergency.
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For 100 level classes I almost always skipped lecture since all they did was go over what was assigned for reading. Classes for my major I almost always attended

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I think I only skipped lectures for like dentist appointments and stuff like that.
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Attended almost all, with the exception of taking first-year stats in fourth year because it was a joke and I skipped most of those lectures. I also overslept and missed a few classes in my last semester, but in retrospect I think I was struggling with a bit of depression at the time, so I'll blame that.
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I'm in the minority here, but in my classes, you'd usually see lecture halls at least 75% empty by the end of the term. Most of us were focused on studying for upcoming finals and finishing up projects.

Tails 64 posted...

I attended just about all my classes. I was paying good money for them, after all.

Some students see it as paying money to attend classes, but I saw it more as paying money to pass and earn course credits. I still learned all the material on my spare time.

Dark_Koopatrol posted...

Tails 64 posted...

I attended just about all my classes. I was paying good money for them, after all.

Some students see it as paying money to attend classes, but I saw it more as paying money to pass and earn course credits. I still learned all the material on my spare time.

It's also age-based to some degree.

Younger students tend to either have a weaker grasp of the value of money (especially if their parents are paying for college, or they took out loans), or view college as "paying for a degree", so the individual classes don't matter as much to them as does the ending where they get handed the degree and (presumably) get the opportunity to get better jobs in the job market.

Older students (ie, adults who have worked for years and are now taking classes on their own time, entirely with their own money) tend to view things more as going to school to better yourself, with whatever degree (assuming they're even going for a degree rather than just taking individual classes) being more of an afterthought. The older adult students tend to see classes as valuable in and of themselves, especially because they're paying for them. Doubly so when you get the occasional retiree who is going to college to have something to do with their time, now that they feel like they've successfully accomplished whatever it was they were meant to do in life.

I had a few classes where most of the class were teenagers/early 20-somethings, but there were a few 40+ adults. In almost every case, the older students were the ones who were there every single class, and tended to be the most engaged with the professor.
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I only ever missed a couple days due to illness in a given semester. Never once deliberately skipped class. I was on financial aid, so I sure as hell wasn't going to do anything that might mess that up.

Skipped and then dropped out because I was really worthless when it came to school.

I skipped a lot, because I found out pretty quickly how to study on my own just by using the syllabus and some online study resources. An exception was labs. Attendance was mandatory for labs, so I did go to those. By my sophomore year, I tried to do as many online classes as I could. I did a couple math classes and biology classes online, abd also some one-offs like theater history.

I did make an effort to go to my professors office hours, though. Sometimes because I had a question, but often just to talk. This was easier in some classes than others, but I went in anyway.

My last couple semesters, the classs dropped from lecture halls of 300 students to classes of 50, and finally dwindled to about 20. I went to those more often (still missed a lot though) but mostly because by that point I was only taking major specific classes that I was interested in.

Now Im in grad school and still skip, but its hurting my grade. Not because Im not following, but because 10% of my grade is attending <_<

I dont know why, but if I go to class, I dont really learn much. I just end up spacing out or drawing in my notebook or falling asleep. Ive always worked better by reading materials on my own. I havent taken ANY notes this semester and I havent received any grades lower than a B- (B+ if you dont count group projects) so studying alone seems to still be working for me. If online grad school classes were more easily available, Id take them in a heartbeat.

Overall, Id say Ive attended between 50 and 75 percent of my lectures.

I skipped entire semesters of lectures and only showed up for the tests if possible for my BS.

Dark_Koopatrol posted...

Attendance was optional (thank god) so I definitely skipped more. Lectures were so useless.

Graduating next year, engineering.

I attended roughly 80% of my lectures.
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