Attendance grades SUCK. :p

[batskeets]

I hate attendance grades. There are times when you just don't need to be in class, like when you have a lot of experience in the area they're covering, or when they're just going to have free work time, and you'd be so much comfier and more efficient if you were able to work at home instead.

Usually, however, those instances involve profs that grade you down if you *don't* come to class. -_-

See, I missed one class period for Continuity, because I was sick. And apparently, that's all we get. If you miss TWO lousy class periods, you get dropped a letter grade. FOR THE WHOLE TERM. I grant you, these are 3-hour long classes, but that's pretty bloody rigid, even so. And 3 hours of work time? What the hell am I supposed to do if I'm working on my project at home and can't/don't want to lug everything over to friggin' Millrace? Sit there like a dope for 3 hours?

I just find the whole idea of attendance grades to be ridiculous. The only instances I can think of offhand in which it's actually justifiable: foreign language, because you have to practice speaking with other people, and phys-ed/dance/etc classes, because you have to physically do and learn what they're teaching, often with special equipment and/or conditions.

But with regular classes, it's stupid. Everyone has a different way of learning, and lecture sections are often quite useless, especially if you know more than the prof is going to teach you on a given day. There are times when you'd just be better off spending an hour a day studying from the book than you'd be spending an hour a day in lecture. And it should be up to us to decide when those instances apply. :p

Comments

[totchiko.livejournal.com]

YES! attendance grades suck.. I had to drop a class this semester because I refused to get a C in a subject I already know just because I was sick.. I was PISSED.. Music Appreciation.. I've been a musician for half my life.. I went to a special High School FOR music.. and I was forced to drop the class because the fucking teacher wouldn't accept a DOCTOR'S NOTE for my absences.. he said that if I had perfect attendance for the rest of the semester and Aced all the tests I could maybe pull a C...

Hell.. my Japanese classes weren't that fucking strict.. and it was a lot more important for me to be present for THOSE.. -_-;;;

[johntbrady.livejournal.com]

Yes well if it were a truely fair system, your grade would be based off oral and written finals only. Truth is our education system is allways lagging behind. We do things this way because they were previously done this way. Often I wonder what it would be like to study at a tech school. My perfect University would encapsulate a graduate self paced atmosphere. You would be tested for progress but your final grade and ranking would be completely judged by a Thesis project. Is it really so far fetched that we be judged by our results rather than our methods? If someone can manage to learn Japanese entirely from a book why should they be discriminated against? Consider the founding fathers of modern education. It wasn't to long ago that the idiots thought you had to segregate male and female classes because the females were so much slower? Keep in mind the American University system was built by the fraternities!!!

[xplo.livejournal.com]

I always had the same problem in high school with teachers who would force you to take notes and then grade you on them, or some dumb thing. It's like, look man, my study habits are none of your damn concern, only my understanding of the material. And not everyone learns by writing stuff down in a notebook.

I'd been told that you didn't have to put up with that kind of crap in college, but I see I was misinformed.