<p>“Similarly, my econ professor was known to put a signed “drop” slip in the mailbox of students who missed two classes without an excuse (because in a class of 50, he noticed). That’s not “coddling” either”</p>
<p>It’s not “coddling,” but it sure is the way I got treated in high school, and I’d had plenty of that. It’s great that this was a good match for you, but I would have found this type of thing really insulting. I wanted profs to kick my butt by handing me a challenge, not by policing how I go about tackling the challenge. I wanted to be trusted to get the job done.</p>
<p>“It’s a far cry from a school where you get credit for skating in and acing the final whether or not you attended class.”</p>
<p>IMHO, if you can ace the final without attending class, then either the class was pretty useless or the final was poorly designed. If you can pull this off, then more power to you for not wasting your time reviewing material you’ve already mastered. I went to class because I got extra learning and better grades out of going, not because the professor would start leaving me sarcastic hints if I didn’t. What can I say…I was a big-university kind of a girl.</p>