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The importance of going to class

Business professor Ashwin Mehta lectures a group of students at UMass Lowell.

William Hanna
UML Student

Skipping class. We have all done, at least once. Next time we go, we take a second. Pause. We never cover that much material! The one (maybe more*) class we skip, the harder it is to recover. Inevitably, it is the one class the professor offered extra credit or went over that one problem we have been struggling with.

It feels good to take our time back from our professors and fellow students. The good feeling of reclaiming our time. What do we do with it? Watch Netflix, hang out with our significant other, do homework for another class or study for an upcoming exam? Does not really matter.

Taking time from ourselves that we are paying, usually over $100 per class period, for is silly. We struggle to make up the material.

We are set into panic when we realize just how far behind skipping a class gets us. It’s not just the period we missed, but the homework, and the review of the last assignment. All-in-all a 75 minute class takes up to 225 minutes to make up. Falling behind is easy, going to class is hard.

What going to class gives us: A sense of pride. We all know more than a few people who have skipped classes, there are fewer still to make it to every class. Our teachers and professors were not kidding when they said attending class is practice for the real world. We will have to get some type of job and even McDonald’s expects its’ employees to show up.

Its better to prepare ourselves as we can. By going to class, taking the extra minute to wait to pack up after the professor is done speaking, and congratulating ourselves for being good students because that is what will pay off.
I started at Penn State in 2012. I did not go to class. I managed to get through a couple years there, but it eventually caught up to me. I have thousands of dollars in federal loan debt, some disappointed family members, and am two years behind my previous peers. The cost is truly immeasurable.

Now, I have rebuilt my academic career. I have a full-time offer of employment after graduation above the median household income and I attribute this entirely to going to class.

Far easier to accept the responsibility of an undergraduate degree and buckle down. The time spend listening to a professor, even if they are long winded or difficult to understand, is not time wasted. We are all hear for a purpose and it that purpose should be the same; to get a degree.

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