It was the second week of classes. My roommate’s Nyan Cat ringtone had entered my dreams and it gave me the signal that I’d have to wrap up my date with Andrew Garfield. I slowly proceeded to rise from my state of slumber. I looked to my right to see if my roomie was awake. Except, she wasn’t in her bed, she was gone. I panicked and looked at her chair, her bag was gone too (all that was left was the slight scent of her perfume in the air). What day is it? Well, yesterday I didn’t have classes… which means today is Monday an early day! I looked at my phone and sure enough, it was 9:40am. In five minutes, my first class would be over. After running around like a headless chicken, I recollected myself and made it right on time to my 10:00am course, like a boss.
Unfortunately, everything went in one ear and out the other in that hour and fifteen minutes. I was too busy rehearsing the lines I would recite to my other, presumably disgruntled professor. I considered making up an excuse, but by the time it was 11:15am and we were dismissed, I decided that I would go with the truth. So, I briskly walked over to the Ansin Building and I approached my professor in her office. Suddenly, we were face to face, and I found my well thought out script had vanished from my mind, leaving no trace of its existence. I ended up babbling something along the lines of, “Hi I’m so sorry I didn’t show up to class today I somehow slept through my alarm and I’ve never done this sort of thing before and I freaked out when I realized that I’d missed your class and I wasn’t sure what to do because I’ve never missed a class before but I’m really sorry and please know that I’ll never do this sort of thing ever again”. I managed to put my projectile vomiting-like monologue to a halt, when I saw a smile creep across her face. She managed to calm me down and assured that she understood and would not hold the absence against me. I thanked her profusely and then, we sat down and she caught me up on all of the notes and material from class for half an hour. I left feeling like a load of overweight chinchillas had been taken off my shoulders. Sure, missing a class was not on my agenda for that week, but having done so, I was given the opportunity to get to know my professor a bit and make my presence known.
For those of you who have fears of missing a class (or would like to stop missing them), here are a few tips:
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- Don’t just depend on your cell phone. Use a real alarm clock as backup.
- Post the schedules of everyone you live with so that you guys can all look out for each other and provide wake up calls whenever necessary.
- Before you go to sleep, remind yourself of whether the next day’s class is in the morning or in the afternoon. Set your alarm clock(s) accordingly.
- If you know that you have an early morning class, try to sleep at a godly hour (whatever that is for you…try no later than 12:30am).
- Finally, if you follow all of these tips and still happen to miss a class, don’t freak out (or worse, avoid the situation all together). Talk to your professor either by email, or better yet, in person and apologize; ask if there’s anything you could do to make up for it.
“School days, school days, dear old golden rule days. Readin’ and writin’ and ‘rithmetic (well, technically, ‘rithmetic doesn’t happen at Emerson), taught to the tune of that hickory stick”. Okay, I won’t put you through the misery of me belting out the rest of that outdated song (it’s like from 1907), but let it serve as a reminder that school days are here again and part of being back to the ol’ grind means making it to class on time!