First day of class in my days in engineering school: The prof spends 5 minutes going over grading scale. He starts teaching immediately and doing problems on the blackboard. Then he assigns homework problems. Skip that first day? Are you nuts?
Like others in the thread, at my school if you didn’t show the first day you were dropped from the rolls. All the most interesting classes had waiting lists, so if you got something you’d liked, you had to go on the first day.
–Cliffy
I loved the first day of classes. Especially when you get into higher-level classes, where it gets narrowed down to 30 or 40 or even less students - what kind of impression is the prof going to get if you can’t even come to the first class?
I always go the first day of class, for the reasons others have mentioned.
Yeah, that’s something else I don’t understand: people who don’t get the textbooks until class is underway. I can understand it if someone added the class late or something, and therefore didn’t realize they’d need the books, but there are always a few people without such an excuse who don’t have the books until the 2nd or 3rd week (sometimes later). To me, showing up to a class without the required books is like showing up for surgery without a scalpel!
You’d just have to deal somehow.
Back in the day, you’d track down the professor and explain that you are a late addition. Then you’d ask if you could drop in to their office (or even elsewhere) at a mutually convenient time to ask a few questions and to get a copy of the syllabus.
Basically, you communicate with your professor. Being a late addition is not a big deal for the diligent student, and just about any professor will be happy to help. With practically professors these days having course syllabi online and having e-mail addresses, the communication aspect must be even easier these days.
On the first day of class I conduct discussions about the intellectual content of the course, do group work, and go over vital information. I have a strict attendance policy and students who miss the first day of class without a valid excuse (i.e., in the hospital) earn their first absence.
I’ve also worked at other colleges where instructors were given the option of dropping students who don’t show up the first day . . . which I always did so the crashers who bothered to show up had a spot. I think not bothering to show up for day one gives a certain impression of the student (not a good one).
Books are expensive. By sitting in on a few classes before you buy the books, you can tell whether or not it’s necessary to buy the book, or whether you can just xerox a few pages out of it or find a less expensive alternative book that has the same information. There is nothing worse than shelling out $80 for a book and finding out the prof only uses three pages in it.
But yeah, I can’t imagine not going on the first day of class. If there’s one session you should be attending, it’s the first one.
I always went to the first day of class in University. Not necessarily to see if I’d want to keep attending the class, because my program limited my choices and I was more or less stuck with what I had. No, I’d go so I could start filling in my agenda with dates for exams and handing in assignments, so I could negotiate early if I spotted a potential conflict. Also, the course outline lists the required textbooks, so I could run out immediately and buy what I needed, usually picking up used or discounted copies because I was there before the rush.
I’m at a different school now, and because it’s an intensive program, we start full classes and labs on the first day. If I miss next Monday, my first day, I skip a full 4-hour hematology lab, and my prof will come find me at home to smack me.
Missing the first day of class might fly when you have a big, mulitmajor class (like physics) where you won’t be interacting with a professor. When you get into your major courses and have smaller classes, it’s a good idea to be there so you can make contact with the professor.
I used to always skip the first day when I didn’t really care about school. Once I got serious, I always went so I wouldn’t be behind and so the professor would know who I was. (I also usually found a reason to stop by during office hours or after class to ask a question for the same reason.) Evne in engineering (my major), knowing the professor can make a world o’difference.
I’ve never found the first day of school particularly useful. But it is exciting! I love finding out what we’ll be doing in class, what books are assigned etc. I love the first day of school.
I used to give extra credit to anyone who could remember what I was wearing the first day of class. People who had me for multiple years knew I did it every semester…
Fmr. Prof. Psychology
Am I dreaming, or is everyone living in some sort of institutional utopia that I have yet to find? I would make every effort to attend a first lecture; however, every year I have attended a university, (on those rare occasions when I actually arrive in the city in question and have an opportunity to unpack prior to the day that classes start) I have had to make concessions to standing in line at the registrar’s office to correct an administrative problem or six, finding out why I had been summarily dropped from all registered classes or something equally assinine (I distinctly recall a computer assisted scheduling system which re-organized a handful of my classes with no notification to me, making them conflict with each other), standing in line at the security office to obtain one of the two hundred parking passes available for the two thousand students who drive to campus, purchasing textbooks (last-minute changes to the required texts listed in the calendar), inquiring as to why the bookstore only purchased half of the amount of textbooks actually required for the number of registered students in the class, standing in another insanely long queue to do so, then rushing to the scheduled class in an attempt not to miss it completely, only to find a note on the door informing me that the originally listed room has been changed, to a new building on the opposite side of campus (this of course happens twice in succession). After all that, I wanted to complain about the fact that such university services were not open and available well prior to the commencement of class. Unfortunately, the office that deals with such complaints doesn’t open for another week…
Attending the first class is a lovely dream. Too bad we have to live in the real world.
Sounds like your university is the exception, not the rule. And a nightmare exception, at that! :eek: The university where I attend grad school is huge, and nearly everything can be done online. Registration, parking passes – even textbooks can be reserved and paid for online, and then simply picked up in the bookstore. Counting both grad and undergrad work I’m about to start my 7th class at this school, and I’ve never had a problem … nor have I ever heard of anyone not being able to attend the first day of class because of anything you describe.
Ok, I simply must chime in:
At my university, the first four days of class were “drop/add.” This means (as most of you probably know) that you could add or drop classes that were available during this timeframe.
My entire goal in college was to skip as many days as possible and pass with B’s or higher. (Note to college professors: Sorry, but there’s a lot more like me out there). In order to do this, I would ALWAYS attend the first day. That’s when you find out things like:
- are there shudder pop quizzes?
- is there an enforced attendance policy?
- the dates of the tests/midterms?
- the professor’s overall demeanor - i.e. hardass, slacker, addlepated lunatic, etc.
By attending the first day, you can gauge the amount of effort required to pass the class . . . if you show up for the tests exclusively. And lest our resident professors scoff at my methods or their applicability to fellow dopers — I graduated with a 3.5 GPA and I wouldn’t consider myself remotely as smart as most of the people on this board.
Finally, let me just note the following (and please, professors, take this as a tongue-in-cheek, half-hearted protest from a former college slacker - I certainly respect your profession, if not your methods):
Evil.
Evil.
Evil.
- Peter Wiggen
I did the same thing as Peter Wiggen - showed up on the first day to see what the class was about, then that allowed me to skip many (if not all) of the REST of the days. You have to show up on day one to know what days you have to show up again.
I graduated with a 3.3 GPA so it worked out for me. I was a big time nerd in High School so I was able to remember most of my high school learning and apply it to tests in Astronomy 101 and Beginning Spanish.
I showed up for all of my major classes, tho. And all the ones that were seriously interested that I signed up for out of interest in the first place.
Don’t miss the first day of class. That’s silly.
I could have written PeterWiggen’s post. I never skipped the first day and I was (am) a huge slacker. Really, the only thing I’m there for is the syllabus and to see if the teacher was an obvious hardass/prick. Being a successful college slacker required some effort up front, such as writing all the important due dates in a calendar. The first day is also when you’ll hear the professor say things like, “Now, this class is a lot of work…” or “I really want to try to give all of you A’s…”
Enforced attendence and pop quizzes were immediate drops if the class wasn’t a requirement for graduation, unless they were worth only a tiny portion of the grade.
Another University Prof chiming in… don’t come by and ask me to cover what I said or did on Day 1. It is a very important lecture, as it is the first impression and sets the tone for the course.
Then again, it is 1/45th or 1/30th of a semester (depending if the course meets 3 or 2 days per week) and it is your money to waste.
By the way, not that you asked
- don’t come in late,
- don’t leave your cell phone ringer on, but don’t answer the phone if you forget #2
- don’t answer the phone and think it is ok to leave class and re-enter
- don’t fall asleep - ever
- visit your profs during office hours - it makes a difference
- if you don’t visit your prof during office hourse, don’t make your first appearance just before the final, and never show up for the first time to dispute your grade.
If anyone comes up to me after the first day and asks for a syllabus, their face is remembered. Anyone who asks boneheaded questions that are clearly covered on the syllabus or clearly mentioned the first day gets on that list, too. On the first day I hand them a syllabus, tell them to read it, to turn off their cell phones, and get to lecturing. The term’s not that long. Some idjit always comes in on the 2d or 3d day asking if they missed anything and if I could give them a rundown. Am I your personal tutor? Now I know that they didn’t necessarily miss class because of something important.
And, no, I don’t care about your damn basketball game. I don’t care if you miss class but you can’t copy my fecking notes. Ask some baseball player in your frat for his. Christ on a crutch.
I always go on first day, and I will be there on Monday.
Everyone goes over the syllabus and some of the rules around campus for new students or anything that has changed from the previous year. Most of them immediately jump into the course material right after this is done, only a couple say ‘we’ll see you the next day’ and turn us loose.
You slackers would’ve liked my Business Math teacher, he told us (on the first day) that he had few rules. You could show up or not as you pleased, as long as you came for the in class tests. Most of the online tests we could do from home, so we didn’t have to show up for them either. If you sat in the back you could goof off and do whatever the heck you wanted as long as you didn’t disturb the rest of the class. His only rule was, you couldn’t ask any questions if you sat at the back because you obviously already knew the course material.
He was a pretty good teacher.