Most of the classes at Oswego State have strict guidelines pertaining to attendance. Attendance, in most classes, is a part of your final grade. This can seem unfair, but at the same time it does seem reasonable.

Firstly, students could be very sick or just feeling under the weather. If getting yourself across campus for class is too much for you to handle right now, should you go to class?

In any situation where you are feeling very sick and unhealthy, it is unwise to attend class. Not only are you putting your body at more of a risk to attract new germs, you are also exposing other people to your sickness by the things you touch. Most professors seem to take sickness pretty well. If you are doing fairly OK, they don’t harp    on it.

Lectures: The best way to handle that is to understand what is going to be addressed during the lecture. It’s never OK to skip a class because you are not feeling it, or if it’s boring and too long. Maybe if you make prior arrangements with your professor he or she will be more lenient about missing it.

Maybe in a lecture you are not understanding a certain topic, and have previously looked it over and even talked with the professor. Instead of wasting an hour in a long lecture, you can use the time to see a tutor.

I would only recommend the idea of missing a class for a tutor if it’s just one topic you’re unsure upon. You can’t just skip every day to go see a tutor; that’s unnecessary. And if the topic is that difficult, then maybe it is time to get even more help besides the tutor arrangement for a class period.

All in all it’s important to understand that the professors are doing their jobs when they get up and teach. They are here to help you learn. If you have a viable, reasonable excuse and are a good student most of the time, they will believe you when you cannot make a class or need to make prior arrangements for a test.

It’s crucial to understand that the attendance policy is there to somewhat force students to attend class, otherwise they might just be too lazy to go. When you don’t attend class and you have no excuse, it looks like a lack of respect for your professor and a lack of regard for your own education.

The attendance policy does make sense, but it could use some tweaking.