Should attendance matter?

Yes:

Mason Cole

This is a question I know we have all pondered at some point, as there are so many days for all of us where getting out of bed to go to class is such a chore. You just want to keep laying down and even fall back asleep, but you know it goes towards your grade, so you push through, get up, and make the trek across campus to your class.

But does it have to be that way? Not at all, coming from me personally. But coming from someone who is well aware of the detrimental effects of potentially missing just one class can have on your grade, I ethically say it should count, with a lot of caveats.

If you are genuinely sick, injured, can’t make it to class due to transit issues, or have a family emergency, you should feel no pressure in sending an email to your professor. If students ask what they are missing, and apologize, in my opinion, that should be counted as if you attended, as you clearly wanted to make it but couldn’t due to circumstances out of your control.

However, if you are just being lazy and don’t want to go, or no email is sent, you probably should be docked a few points on your participation/attendance grade, as you are inconveniencing the professor and wasting their time by not using yours in the way you are expected to as adults. And, this may be pretty harsh for some people to hear, but if you don’t want to go to class at all, you probably should choose a path other than college, as it might not be for you.

Graphic by Jacob Lustig

No:

Jacob Lustig

Attendance is something that simply marks if someone is in class or not and it does not distinguish if someone is actually consuming the material and truly learning in the classroom, which for some people, does not happen in-person.

While there is an understandable reasoning to why attendance is considered for a grade, it makes more sense for that to apply to structures that are not college.

With college, students pay for their own education, they pay for the classes they take. To force a student to attend class takes away from the autonomy that they have with their own education. It is one thing to have a student go to something that is provided for them, but when they are the one holding the reins to an opportunity, shouldn’t they be the ones to decide how they go about it? Students should be able to prove their knowledge in cumulative assignments such as exams.

College is meant to support students’ adjustment to adulthood, one thing that comes with this is personal responsibility. If attendance was not factored in for a grade, students would be faced with the consequences of their decisions by the time grades are being submitted at the end of a semester.

Not requiring attendance allows for students to be treated like adults instead of children, and holds them to real-world standards while keeping them accountable but also in control of their own education.