College is a freeing experience. Released from the framework of their homes, students can decide many things for themselves for the first time: when to go to bed, when to wake up, what to eat and how to structure their day.

However, this freedom also brings a new lack of accountability. The lessened supervision in college means that students can avoid studying, party late, sleep all day and, most importantly, skip class.

Although not out of place in high school, skipping becomes an entirely new monster in college. Three University professors from popular freshman classes gave their perspectives on the culture of skipping and why attendance is essential to student success.

“At its core, coming to class is about much more than hearing a lecture,” said Brian Dill, professor in LAS and instructor of SOC 100: Introduction to Sociology. “Sociology, in particular, often asks students to engage with unfamiliar ways of thinking about the world.”

Most University classes use a combination of online and in-person learning, often posting resources on class sites to supplement lectures and discussions. Dill emphasized that even though the basic message of the classes can be understood from their online content, engaging with the material in person is a crucial part of the learning process.

“Being present allows students to ask questions, engage actively and hear how others are making sense of the material,” Dill said. “These moments often cannot be fully captured by simply reviewing lecture slides on Canvas.”

Many classes’ attendance policies allow for an excused absence. Every class has different attendance expectations, including giving students a certain number of free passes or providing a channel of communication to explain their absence to the instructor. The policies allow students to have flexibility with their schedules without missing too much content. 

“We’re hoping students are going to transition from the high school way of thinking about attendance to the college way of thinking about attendance,” said Lisa Travis, professor in LAS and lecturer of PSYC 100: Introductory Psychology. “The high school way of thinking is, ‘If I don’t attend, I’ll get in trouble,’ and the college way is more, ‘If I don’t attend, I won’t learn the things I need to learn and want to learn.’”

Studies show a positive correlation between attendance or engagement and performance in a class, and University professors concur with their own statistics. Professors highlighted that students who attend lectures or discussions often perform better overall in the class.

“This past spring, in my in-person STAT 100 section, students who attended (more than) 75% of classes had an average final grade of a 94%,” said V.N. Vimal Rao, professor in LAS and instructor of STAT 100: Statistics. “Students who attended less than that had an average final grade of 86%.”

Although the cause-and-effect relationship is not always clear, multiple professors pointed out some type of correlation.

“We keep track of attendance in Introductory Psych, and we look at how that relates to final grades, and we find a correlation in the range of 0.6 … so we know they’re strongly related,” Travis said. “The thing we teach to students in PSYC 100 is, ‘Don’t interpret correlation as causation’ — it may not be that the attendance causes you to get better grades, but we certainly know they go together.”

Overall, professors encourage students to consider not only themselves when they skip but also the impact it could have on the learning environment.

“One of the most important sources of learning is your peers,” Rao said. “When you haven’t done your work, you impact your own learning as well as that of your classmates.”

Professors’ most repeated message was that even if it might seem worth it in the moment, skipping class has far-reaching impacts on a student’s performance and their classroom environment.

Travis emphasized that students should frame the question in more positive terms, using the reasons why they want to be in class instead of what the consequences would be if they skipped.

“Be aware that now that you are an adult, it’s your choice to make whether you attend this class or not,” Travis said. “But there’s a reason why we ask you to attend …  just think, ‘What am I here for? What do I want to get out of this experience?’ And if you think about that hard enough, you’ll probably realize that it isn’t just to accumulate points.”

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