Students pay a lot of money to attend ACU. They should have the right to skip class as much as they want.
After a late night of homework, watching movies, playing Xbox or staying out with friends, the last thing anyone wants to do is wake up for an early class.
At the beginning of the semester it’s easy to skip a class here and there. However, as the weeks progress, students find themselves double-checking the syllabus to see how many absences they are allowed and trying to remember how many they have so far. The number is often different for each class and it’s difficult to keep them straight.
Sometimes missing class is unavoidable. Illness, appointments, car trouble and malfunctioning alarm clocks all contribute to absences, but most of the time they won’t count as “excused.”
While a class attendance policy has good intentions, it is too strict on students.
Two of the most important traits students are supposed to learn in college are responsibility and integrity. While professors include an attendance policy in the syllabus with good intentions, it makes students feel they are being forced to go to class. Without an attendance policy, students would have to rely on themselves to get to class, therefore giving them a reason to choose whether or not to be responsible.
Courses are not free, especially at ACU. Each hour in each class costs a lot of money. If students choose not to go to class they are wasting money, and that should be their choice. Sometimes the best lessons are learned the hard way.
Without mandatory attendance, some students would only show up to class on exam days. Many large universities don’t have attendance policies, and many students there don’t go to class often but still get good grades and succeed after school. Many others fail, and still others go to class and get more for what they paid for.
Mandatory class attendance policies at ACU should be removed, or at least relaxed. In return, students must respect their professors and themselves and be responsible enough to go to class as often as possible.
