Picture the scene: it's a cool Autumn morning, the sound of rain trickling down your bedroom window wakes you from a lovely dream, and as you lie there wrapped in the warmth of your bedsheets, a horrible reality dawns on you: you have a 9am lecture that is due to start in less than an hour.
You have two options: you can either be a good student, get out of bed, and get ready for your 9am, knowing you might be a few minutes late and have to do the walk of shame to the back of the lecture theatre. Or, option two, you close your eyes and fall back into a sweet slumber.
The second option is ever-tempting, especially during the Autumn months when the weather starts to worsen and the mornings drag on longer. While there's something quite pleasant about a crisp walk to campus, trekking to uni through the blistering wind and rain for an hour or two of lectures feels like an incredible feat.
Although my degree is fairly chill, with a maximum of 8-9 contact hours a week, I'm still guilty of missing a lecture every once in a while. I would like to claim that I'm a hard-working individual, but I still fall victim to the slippery slope of missing lectures. Whether it's because I woke up hungover, slept through my alarm, or simply couldn't find the energy to drag myself onto campus for a lecture, when I know I could just flick through the slides and make notes from home, it's hard to go.
Still, I do feel guilty about missing lectures or seminars as I know that there is money going down the drain. For a student like me, who has very few contact hours a week, missing a single lecture has even more financial repercussions. Based on my calculations (which may be inaccurate), each hour on my timetable costs roughly £44.50 of my yearly payment towards my degree!
Now that I've entered my third year, I've vowed to keep my attendance as high as possible. Although I can't account for unpredictable things, such as the possibility I may wake up one day too sick to go to my lectures, or the bus being 30 minutes late, I can at least try to control my own academic fate.
I'd be very surprised if there was any university student who could, hand on heart, state that they have never missed a single lecture/seminar. Even the most studious of us lack motivation and academic drive sometimes, and that's okay. University is different from other education, as your success is completely in your own hands. To do well at uni, you do have to apply yourself and take it seriously, because you're overall grade will only reflect your attitude and application towards the course.
You are here for a degree at the end of the day; you're investing money towards this, and there are others, such as lecturers or seminar leaders, who rely on a good turnout of students to maintain their careers and reputations. Missing a few lectures a term will likely not impact your overall grade much, but making it a habit is potentially dangerous, and you could risk interventions and grade penalisation - and you don't want that!
You're the only one who can decide whether to skip the lecture or whether to turn up, but don't forget the real reason you're here at university: to get the degree and set yourself up for future success.
