Should I go to class today?
You’re a straight A student (or maybe you’re a couple B’s away). You’ve never missed a single class before in your life. To you, education is priority and getting great grades is an obligation.
But you woke up this morning, and you feel like absolute shit. You can barely keep your eyes open and the thought of going to class just fills you with dread today. Your body is telling you not to go to class, but your brain is telling you that if you don’t go, you’ll miss too much, flunk the next exam, and end up with a D in the class.
What do you do? To some people, this is a no brainer. Just don’t go to class if you feel horrible.
But this devil & angel thinking has happened to me more times than I could count simply because of my obligatory attitude towards school. I studied too late the night before and didn’t get enough sleep to make it for my 8AM class. That class required obscene amounts of student participation and I truly believed I was about to lose it if I attended.
The fact of the matter is, when you do something once, it is entirely possible, and likely, that you can do it again. If you skip class today, you can skip class tomorrow, simply because you don’t feel like attending. Sometimes, we may even make up reasons why we shouldn’t or can’t go to convince ourselves that not attending will be okay.
I skipped class that day. I felt awful because of that. The class was easy. Not attending wouldn’t hurt me at all and I wouldn’t lose out on any important information. I had convinced myself that I had a good excuse not to attend. Two weeks later, I did it again. Once again, I had convinced myself. At that point I realized that if this pattern continued, the professor would dock easy points off my grade and leave me with an A- in an otherwise easy class. So, every Monday morning, I dragged my sorry butt out of my warm bed and told myself that an easy A was within reach. All I had to do was show up.
But I still feel like crap!
That’s not to say that if you feel horrible this morning that you should skip all your classes today. As you are waking up and making that quick decision whether to catch some more Z’s or whip off those warm covers, consider your reasons for not attending and the reasons to attend. It’ll be quick I promise.
Pros to skipping
Well, this is easy.
You get to sleep more and you’ll feel better after.
You don’t have to worry about getting cold-called to answer a question you don’t know the answer to.
You feel awful and couldn’t concentrate even if you wanted to.
Cons to skipping
This is a bit harder to force yourself to think about.
You may miss out on important material. Consider whether your professor teaches off slides that you have access to or if they emphasize on material dictated during lecture. If you don’t attend, make sure you have a friend who takes great notes and is willing to send you them and explain what you don’t understand.
Your professor may notice and take points off on attendance and participation. Consider whether your grades are high enough to take this hit. Attendance and participation though usually worth less points (unless it’s English or language class), may make a significant difference if your test grades are low.
And the last one: You’ll feel guilty. You paid for your classes but now you’re not attending.
Feel free to add more to this list.
While I was considering whether to skip my morning class or not, I always looked online to see what other people thought. But in truth, no one on the internet is going to tell you what to do. You have to make this decision yourself.
Consider your circumstances.
Most of the time, skipping a class isn’t really as big a deal as you keep telling yourself. Your mental and physical health is more important than school and classes.
Just don’t make it a habit.
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