<p>I’m an incoming freshman and I’m not looking to ditch tons of classes at cornell but I wanted to know how easy/difficult it is, particularly before breaks. I live far away from ithaca and sometimes flights home are at weird hours that might cut into class time. What do you know about it?</p>
<p>You won’t know how it will affect you personally until you get your course schedule set and the syllabus from the prof.
That said, you do as you wish.
If you are looking to fly home to California for Thanksgiving, lots of kids do it freshman year then don’t for the next 3 years because it wasn’t worth the stress.</p>
<p>For one thing, not all classes have mandatory attendance. This is typically the case with larger lecture classes, as well as some sections. For courses structured differently, though, this may not be the case. Language courses are probably the best example of classes with mandatory attendance because they are typically daily sections and sometimes smaller lectures added to that. The instructor of that type of class usually has an attendance policy that can accommodate an absence.</p>
<p>If you only plan on skipping before breaks, you should be fine - you just have to plan your absences wisely. If you know in advance that you’ll need to skip a day for Fall Break, Thanksgiving, etc., you will know not to skip class just because you want to sleep in for classes that have a strict attendance policy. Profs realize that students get sick and need to get home so even in the classes with harsh attendance policies you will be permitted to miss a few classes without being penalized.</p>
<p>Totally depends on both the class and the professor. I had one class my sophomore year that I went to twice and still got an A, while another professor had such a strict attendance policy that I never missed, even when I had a kidney infection (and still got a B+!). Classes definitely can’t be generalized, it really depends on a lot of things. Professors tend to get more lenient around breaks because they know what a hassle it is for kids to get out of town (but NOT during finals). I agree with Ballto though-- I went home for Thanksgiving and Christmas my first year, but never again after that. It’s just too much of a hassle ( and $$) to fly to the west coast, especially when it’s so much more fun to go to Boston or NYC instead.</p>