Savannah Mul – Opinions Editor –
It’s 8:25 in the morning and the professor isn’t there. At this time, students are exchanging back and forth the, “Do you think we should leave,” to the “Yeah, I need a coffee anyway,” then to the, “But guys, our professor is a Doctor that means we have to wait another 15 minutes.”
Where is the line drawn with all these “rules?” Plus, where does it even say students must wait a certain amount of time until scurrying away to their next cup of coffee. I’m not entirely sure if it all spread from word of mouth or if there are actual restrictions outlined in the student handbook. After reading the first 10 pages of the handbook, I started to doze off for a minute and couldn’t even remember what I was looking for to begin with. So I had little luck finding it in the student handbook.
How is the line drawn between waiting time for a professor compared to waiting time for the educators that have doctoral degrees even originate? I guess it’s just common courtesy to give professors and those doctors the benefit of the doubt that if they’re are running late. Students never get that courtesy if they are suffering from car troubles and arrive 20 minutes late for class.
I was a freshman enrolled in a grueling algebra class when one morning, the class lingered outside our room in Engleman waiting for the professor to show—so, that’s a 10-minute window of waiting, right?
What did I know, I was a nervous freshman and the upperclassmen were counting down the minutes and saying who would be the first one to walk away. Soon enough, the next thing I knew my fellow classmates started parading down the hall towards the exit doors and being the naive freshman who was craving a nice hot cup of coffee, I couldn’t resist following their lead. The time had to be around 8:35 a.m. and still, by the time I left, the professor was a no show.
I say giving a 25 minute window of waiting time is fair enough. Half of the actual class period would be over with anyway, even if the teacher did show up.
The following day, he apologized to us for missing the class and explained that he had car problems that morning. Most teachers don’t give you a specific time but he said, “If I’m not here within the first 15-minutes of class, I probably can’t make it in.” It would be nice if professors shared this with us; maybe on the first day of classes when all we talk about those long syllabuses. We’ll understand, you can’t help the days when life situations get in the way of living out daily activities. It happens, but professors can assume that if they show up 35 minutes late for a class, virtually no students will still be waiting outside the classroom door.
