Many Oswego State students will be heading home to go back to their families for Thanksgiving break and for those that live a great distance away, navigating can be difficult. Some professors are throwing a wrench in students’ traveling plans by scheduling quizzes, exams and mandatory attendance on the last day before break, which is utterly ridiculous.

Attendance policies are ludicrous to begin with, and even more so before a holiday break. The people that want to come to class will come to class, and those that don’t won’t and probably have a good reason for missing. A prime example might be if a student needs to catch a bus out of Oswego by a certain time, and needs to skip Tuesday’s classes. Professors should not be having important classes the last day or two before break.

Students and teachers alike are burnt out by this time of the semester and need a break. All pre-break assignments, tests or quizzes should be finished by the Friday before break. Professors need to take into account the fact that traveling home involves time and money, and if they could lessen this impact for students by not assigning things for the two days before break, students might be able to take a breather and get home to their families stress-free.

It is impossible for students to make every class. People feel sick or need to attend to other school obligations at times, so they need the amount of excused absences for important reasons. Penalizing or taking away an absence from a student who needs to leave to go home early is not fair.

Students come to college to become independent and escape the strictness of high school.  We no longer have electronic machines phoning home when we skip class. We don’t need to be penalized for missing class—especially on a day where people are trying to travel home to help Mom make turkey.