For fall of 2020, I will be starting anatomy 150. There is a very important family wedding in october, so my family will be leaving from August to October for the wedding. In our culture and family its a very important thing so I cannot miss it. I am in community college right now and currently a freshman. If I miss 2-4 weeks of Anatomy do you guys think it would affect my grades much? I really don’t want to push back my graduation date, i want to be able to graduate in May 2021, not 22. Do you guys think the professors and school will be able to help work with me and be understanding when it comes to these types of situations? Also, has this similar situation happened to any of you guy before? and for the people who have taken Anatomy 150, is it hard? (ofcourse it’s hard, but is it doable.)
I think it would be incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to miss multiple weeks of anatomy (which likely has a lab component) and not have it negatively impact your grade. Given that it appears you want to pursue nursing that seems like a particularly terrible idea. And FWIW the same would hold true for any other class you take during the fall semester – you should expect your grades will suffer if you miss so many classes.
Depending on the school’s policy you might automatically get dropped from fall semester classes if you don’t show up to school until sometime in October.
I would either skip the wedding (weddings are important in many cultures and people do miss them for a variety of valid reasons including education), return to school before the start of the semester, or not take classes in the fall semester.
Can you take summer classes and skip the fall semester?
It would be incredibly difficult to miss a month of classes and not have it affect your grade-and that goes for any class, whether it’s history or anatomy. Wouldn’t you be missing at least one exam, in addition to the lab?
My experience with anatomy is from medical students I know(which may be completely different from your class). The consensus is that under no circumstances should a student miss a full month of anatomy course/lab work. But if you really want a definitive answer, make an appointment with the instructor and ask his/her opinion.
Recommend you take it another semester.
Missing more than 2 labs at my D’s school is an automatic fail. Frankly I’m not sure how you’d be able to keep up with any class if you missed a month of school, especially at the beginning of the semester.
IMO, either skip the wedding or take the semester off.
oh, so missing 1-2 weeks instead would be difficult too? Most of the classes I will be taking in Fall 2020 will be easy so i’m not worried about them, it’s just Anatomy i’m worried about. I can take summer classes, but I feel like it might be hard if I take Anatomy in the summer because it might go by too fast for me , and if i take it in the summer I will have to take Anatomy 151 after it which will be fall 2020 because if i wait until spring 2021 i feel like i might forget everything 
so if i miss even 2 weeks will it be just as worse ?
You stated Aug-Oct initially, and that you had to attend. Has that now changed?
And regarding 2 weeks-how many classes will be missed? How much, if any, lab time? Any mid-terms missed?
Sorry, but I think you’re setting yourself up for failure if you do this, and not just the Anatomy class is at risk. (And no, your profs will not want to “work with you” so you can go on vacation.)
Either miss the wedding, or skip school for a semester and graduate later. The alternative is to go to the wedding AND graduate later because you’ve failed or got too low a grade in your classes, with a lower GPA and an extra semester’s tuition to pay.
I agree, it is really unlikely you can pull that off.
Perhaps you can find a way to take that class in the summer and find classes you can take remotely that semester so you don’t have to slip you grad date.
oh i forgot to mention, my family would go from Aug to Oct, not me, i would just go a week or two before the wedding. I never really thought about lab time, i just looked at the times they have for the labs, it’s way too many too be missed per week. Thanks for your feedback!
Thank you, everybody, for your feedback. This insight helped me a lot.
Anatomy and Physiology I/Lab AND Anatomy and Physiology II/Lab are nursing prerequisites that are considered weed-out classes for a nursing degree (ADN/BSN). Missing weeks of classes will surely put you at a disadvantage with respect to your classmates, at risk of getting a low grade or failing the class outright.
My daughter, while a high school dual enrolled student at our local community college, did Anatomy and Physiology I/Lab. The class started out with ~30 students, most of which were pre-nursing students. The class met on Saturdays for 3-hours, followed by a 1-hour Lab. At the end of the course, there were only 8 students remaining in the class! The class was actually taught by a physician. Like the other posters, I would highly recommend that you avoid missing one class much less 8 or more classes.
Perhaps you can arrange your fall schedule to take online classes for the semester and take the classes with labs in the summer or spring.
Do you still have any base classes that you need to take that you could take online? English, history?
I’m taking english, chemistry and a few others next semester. If I take Anatomy in the summer, I would have to take the second anatomy after it which would have to end up being fall anyways. So the summer thing isn’t really an option any more The only important and hard classes left for me to take after next semester would be the two anatomys and microbiology.