have you ever passed a college class without attending lecture the whole semester?

[brainhulk]

I passed 2nd quarter freshman biology with a B after unwrapping the textbook 2 days before the final. 2nd quarter was a party fest for me and for some reason I was confident I could pass. I think that experience is what leads to my intermittent nightmares from college

 

[manimal]

Rocks for Jocks and didnt attend a psych class but wrote an outstanding paper and the teacher gave me an A if I took her next class.
What was funny is I didnt have to attend any of those as well. She wanted me to do labs and studies. Some of the most fun I had in college.

 

[BoomerD]

Nope...why would I pay all that money for a class...then not attend? Seems silly to me.

 

[IronWing]

I skipped all but two of my World Lit lectures. The prof was awful. I went to the discussion sections with the TA, who was quite good. I got an A. HS prepared me to write perfect BS essays on any topic, from any point of view required.

Nope...why would I pay all that money for a class...then not attend? Seems silly to me.

Time prioritization. Some classes require or are worthy of more attention. Calc, Chem, Physics trumped World Lit in making the best use of my time.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

Nope...why would I pay all that money for a class...then not attend? Seems silly to me.

You're not paying to attend, you're paying for a piece of paper that says you attended.

If you can pass with good grades and not go to class, than why waste your time?

And as for the OP, yep. Professors tend to put all their notes online these days anyway, so just study those and you never have to go to class.

 

[Newell Steamer]

Nope.

However, in my last 2 years of college, I never cracked a book open, but, I aced all the courses and tests (law, financial analytics and business management related courses). I attended all classes, etc. I learned/retained everything from the lectures.

Also, in NYC, if you don't show up for certain number of lectures per course, you automatically fail the course. Every professor made it clear at the beginning of the semester. This was back in '96 to '00,.. not sure if it still applies today.

 

[z1ggy]

Nope...why would I pay all that money for a class...then not attend? Seems silly to me.

Because you're paying for a degree, not really knowledge. 80% of what I learned in college, doesn't even apply to my current job.

I did however, end up skipping about 10 weeks of one class that I had a horrendous professor in. Class had about 100 people, taught by some douche Indian guy who made his tests insanely difficult. It wasn't even in my area of study, and was at 8am.

Needless, I stopped going about 1 month in. Ended up just showing up for exams. Got a D+ I think. 0 shits were given by me though.

 

[cabri]

Child Psychology class.
Instructor offered those that were parents, a B+ to not attend after second class
3 of us w/(total of 7 children) were disruptive because of questioning her "theory" methods vs real life experience.

 

[JamesV]

I passed this stupid mandatory black studies class on Jazz (wtf - really?), and I never went, never opened the book, but I wrote a nice piece on the final saying I moved out of town and couldn't get to class, and sorry for wasting the professors time... he gave me a C.

I probably would have finished my degree if I could have skipped more classes. I remember one class where this kid would spout inane questions the entire time, basically making the class 'Listen to the stupid kid ask the same questions over and over 110'; was mandatory to show up or you lost grade points.

If I'm learning something then I'll go, but the vast majority of my college classes I passed with an A by simply reading the book, taking good notes, and studying. I absolutely hate having to go to a class where I learn nothing, have to listen to idiots, and it's mandatory.

 

[nageov3t]

nope... my college had a thing where they'd remove you from a course if you failed to attend it for like the first 3 weeks of the semester unless you emailed the Prof with an explanation/warning.

there was one class in my second year that I skipped about 75% of... ended up getting a C in the course because the prof weighed class participation significantly and the bitch blackballed me for a scholarship I applied for the following year.

 

[Scarpozzi]

I took a computer basics class that was pretty much office/word/excel/access.... The chancellor's wife was teaching the class. I explained that I used to teach the class, but needed the credit. Day 1, I asked if I could skip lecture and homework and base my grade souly on the exams (which were all on the computer). She gave me the exam schedule and I showed up those 3 days...then for the final. I scored almost perfect on all exams except for a few excel/access misses... (I was doing everything from memory and was 2 years out of practice) In the end, she gave me a D because I had missed my homework and attendance....then I reminded her of the arrangement and she changed it back to an A.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

It wasn't even in my area of study, and was at 8am.

I had a rule about those kinds of classes. If I showed up the first day and the professor said there would be a semester-long research paper due at the end of the semester (for example), I would immediately go to the registrar and drop the class. I wasn't spending that kind of time doing busy work for non-major classes.

 

[repoman0]

A in Physics II which I showed up for on day 1 and for midterms / final. However that was because I decided I could learn better from the book than the lecture .. so throughout the semester I read the book a total of 2-3 times front to back and worked through examples and homework carefully.

There were a handful of classes I did this in if at the beginning I decided the book was better than the lecturer. Including a class in linear optimization / linear programming this past semester ...

So, I only did it if I gained some kind of knowledge out of it anyway. Agreed that you might as well drop a class and save the time if you're going to not show up and not learn anything. Whether you actually "use" what you learned is irrelevant, at least in STEM, because every class you take sharpens math, physics and problem solving skills if you bother to take the time to learn it properly.

 

[Kev]

I skipped almost all of my C++ classes and still got an A.

Although I almost failed the midterm because I didn't know when it was. Luckily there was a snowstorm that day and it got postponed and I found out about the new time.

 

[Ronstang]

After the first week of lecture in my genetics class I just could not handle the silly dumbed down lectures because the class was so stupid. I only showed up for tests and the final and still made the second highest grade in the class. They had even ruined college by way back then.

 

[Ferzerp]

I did this with a sociology course ages ago (all school was ages ago). It was an 8am course.

I showed up precisely 3 or 4 times. Once on the first day to receive the syllabus and again on each day to turn in the 2 or 3 papers that made up the entire grade (can't remember if it was 2 or 3). I got an A-. Even at institutions with pretty high academic requirements, survey courses are usually fluff.

I later attempted the same thing in a 7 person philosophy graduate level course. I ended up with a B in that one because the professor did not appreciate my flaunting of the lack of attendance policy.

 

[z1ggy]

I had a rule about those kinds of classes. If I showed up the first day and the professor said there would be a semester-long research paper due at the end of the semester (for example), I would immediately go to the registrar and drop the class. I wasn't spending that kind of time doing busy work for non-major classes.

Yeah, I was studying for Electrical Engineering, taking some class as a sophomore for materials science.

It was such an epic waste of my time. Oh let's calculate the stress on this rock compared to the stress on this other rock!

Basically, I could have skipped the first 2 years of college, and gotten exactly the same thing out of it. Looking back, I can't believe how useless the first 8 classes I took were. I think only one of them really even applied wholly to my major. The rest were English 101, chemistry 101, etc.

 

[Legios]

I did the opposite, I attended a class and was acing the tests. Turns out I didnt actually register for that one. This is back when registering was done via phone. I was 1 digit off so I failed the actual class I signed up for. That was bad.

 

[vi edit]

First day of my intro to pysch class the professor straight up told us that everything we needed to know for the tests was in the books. Lectures were just supplemental. I stopped in 4 days that semester to take tests and walked away with an A.

Which was great because the class before it was almost *entirely* lecture based and incredibly narrative heavy so I spent most of that time organizing the notes afterwards.

 

[Cappuccino]

OFC who dosent? You get couple of units every term and ofc one of them is a useless pointless unit, therefore you skip and Google the research yourself. Profit.

 

[corwin]

Yep...every damn one of them...of course all my classes are online:sneaky:

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Sure. Online classes.

 

[purbeast0]

yep, econ201 my last semester. i had taken econ101 from the same guy years before so i knew how he taught.

he put all of his slides online, and every lecture was going over the slides. we had homework due every few weeks, but he had a box in the class you dropped it on in. so i'd just go drop it off then leave. i'd show up for tests only.

then for the final, i did what the OP did and bought the book the day before the final. crammed like a mofo, and took the exam. don't know what my grade was, but i think it was a C. i didn't care as long as i passed and graduated.

 

[ControlD]

I went to the first two lectures of my first chemistry class and promptly skipped the rest. A class of 750 students with a professor that spoke almost no English. I did attend the recitation classes however.

 

[V00DOO]

Yes I have. I went in the first day of class of course then went in for the midterm test. I decided to attend the last class session before the final to see what was up. The professor got so piss off with so few students attended his class during the year he decided to give a very hard final but gave the answer to the questions during the lecture. Needless to say I got an A in the class.