The Point

What’s the point of going to class? Maybe you (or your students) want to turn up to all classes in person. Or only watch the lecture recordings as videos at home late at night. Or some balance of in-person with face-to-face….

Everyone has an opinion on what type of learning works best for them, but surely by now the proof is in the pudding? The grades for the past semester were just released at my University, so many students are trying to make sense of what worked (and perhaps more importantly, didn’t work) for them.

The main “point” of turning up to class is actually not anything to do with the class itself. It’s about the ancillary indirect benefits of showing up on the day again and again over time - establishing good habits, time management skills, forming connections with your peers and teachers, and developing soft skills that are crucial to find a job. If attending classes “live” is not an realistic option, you’ll need to find other ways to enrich your learning experience.

To truly understand the value of coming to class, we need to go back to a time when there was no other choice - back to the 1990s:

Back in the 90s (but really all the decades that came before it as well), classes weren’t recorded in any way, nothing is available before class or after class other than textbooks.  If you didn’t show up to class on the day, you had no chance. If you’re sick, or your children are sick, or you have to work to pay the bills, nobody cared.  You just have to figure it out.

Amidst all this “bad stuff”, there is value.  First of all the fact that everyone had to physically attend every class to pass brought a sense of collective belonging, even if that’s in the form of gallows humour or mild shared trauma.  The sense of isolation wasn’t as pervasive - you know you’re not alone, because there are always people around whether you liked it or not.  It forced all sorts of social situations and interactions upon you, and over the course of 3, 4, 5 years, you’re forced to develop rapport with your peers, a sense of identity in how you represented yourself to different people, and a set of communication skills that are your bread and butter in applying for jobs and navigating selection criteria and interviews.

Also under these circumstances, students had to develop amazing note-taking and processing skills - listening to someone talk, and reacting in real time to both document what they’ve said, and filter out the most important details.  What a valuable skill for learning and you career overall.  We’re all drowning in information overload, and having the ability to parse out the signal from the noise is super important. No-one is naturally great at this, but back then you had multiple years of university to hone these skills as part of your survival as a student - you had no choice but to improve this skill that sets you up for any kind of work after you graduate.

So… at the end of the day should you turn up to class? 

Unless your teachers make attendance marked and compulsory, it really is up to you.  You do need to make an informed decision though one way or another.  If you choose to turn up to class, you’re doing this to enjoy a campus-based experience, meet new people, and develop social and communication soft skills that will set you up down the track.  It may take time away from carer duties or part-time employment (and it may not even improve your grades!), but your GPA alone isn’t going to what lands you the job, or the job after the job. 

If you choose to only watch lecture recordings at home alone, you’ll need to be smart and strategic to get the most out of this. Know that you are making the conscious choice to optimise for exam performance (assuming you have the motivation to keep up to date on all your videos and learning by yourself), and not the other parts of the learning experience. I would hope then that you’ll have a mechanism to compensate for this in other ways - joining clubs and societies, developing work experience opportunities relevant to your area of study, or at the very least using online discussion boards (not anonymously!) to engage with other students.

Again, now you have the benefit of hindsight, and it’s time to challenge your pre-conceived ideas about how you learn best.  Check your grades and exam results, and check how many classes you attended in person versus watched online.

A Study autopsy is not particularly fun, but an important part of the process to develop as life-long learners.

Jack.