<p>Regarding skipping class:</p>
<p>In my view, skipping a class is like taking that first potato chip. Once you start, it can snowball. You can easily talk yourself into all sorts of convenient reasons for why it makes sense to skip the class: it’s boring, it’s too early, you need to use the time for research, you have a deadline, etc… Bottom line is that skipping classes is an excellent way to become disengaged, out of touch, and behind.</p>
<p>Take the total college bill and do the math. Look at the math all different ways. Figure out what it costs to attend by the semester, by the course, by the month, by the week, by the class, etc. Figure out how much each course costs. For instance, it you’re at a $40K per year school, each semester represents $20K, and with 4 courses per semester each course represents $5K, and with approx. 15 instructional weeks in the semester each course then represents $333 per week. So, if you skip a given class for a week, you are ripping up $300 bucks and throwing it in the garbage. Obviously, this is a gross generalization and very conceptual, but my son and I found this to be a very helpful exercise. And yes, there are many other factors that make up the college experience, but for the purpose of this exercise we broke it down to classroom time because it was simple to quantify.</p>
<p>The way I look at it, going to class is my kid’s job. He is essentially being “paid” $300 to attend the week’s classes in a given course. If he skips the classes that week, he is ripping up $300 and throwing it in the garbage. If he is not attending class, I want to know what he is doing with himself that is earning more/is more important than that $300… if instead of going to class he is sleeping late or goofing off, that is not an acceptable trade-off. If the class is too “boring” for him to bother to attend, I’d wonder whether that $5K could be better spent. </p>
<p>This also relates to finding a good fit. Just because a school has a wonderful reputation doesn’t mean that it’s the right learning environment for every student. There are so many factors, as has often been discussed on this forum. For my son, a good fit meant (in part) finding a school with enough structure to support his best intentions, not allow him to slide. He is a motivated student but does like to stay up late and sleep late which is a habit that can easily conflict with a class schedule. For example, for him, a school with small classes for which he needed to show up prepared provides better built-in structure/routine than huge lecture-style courses which are easier to skip. This past semester he had a course with 6 students and a prof sitting around a table. He had no choice but to attend the class and stay abreast of the material. Putting in the effort led to feeling more engaged and showing up to every session and the classroom interaction magnified the learning experience. Maybe that is not true for every student.</p>
<p>My sister was not academically oriented and growing up, there were frequent parent/sister discussions about how a class was “too boring” or “the teacher couldn’t teach” or some other reason why she was underperforming.</p>