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| attending class: Luxury or necessity? |
I once spoke to a student at the end of his first year and asked him the question: ”What was the biggest lesson you had learnt about life during the year?” He replied: “The freedom sir, the freedom. It will kill you!”. I thought this response was both funny and profound. One of the main attributes of university studies is the fact that you are given all the freedom to take your own decisions about what you will and won’t do. As I am sitting here now one can clearly see one of the effects of this freedom here on campus. During the first few weeks of class the campus is abuzz and you can barely find a space to sit in most classes. Now however the attendance (based on people on campus any given day) seems to have dropped by about 40%. This implies that many students have started using their freedom to decide to not attend class anymore. I think this is a HUGE mistake. I know some classes are boring and some others are early in the morning, but if you are not attending all (or at least most) of your classes, you are setting yourself up for failure. Who do you think will be setting your tests and exams? The lecturer will be doing so. If you are not in class, you won’t know what they have emphasised and what they have said is not that important. In other words, you will not know what to study. Secondly, you have paid a huge amount of money to come and “sit at the feet” of a real expert in their field. You are wasting that opportunity by not being in class. I have seen from some research that I have conducted that there is a direct link between class attendance and academic performance. The link is so simple, it almost seems obvious: Those who attend tend to do better and those who do not tend to do worse. Please do not believe that you will be different. My advice would be: ”Do not let your freedom kill you academically! This starts by attending all of you classes!”
-André van Zyl (PhD)
Academic Development Centre (ADC) Acting Director
