You’re Late Again?!?

Freddie Schwartz

            It’s twenty-five minutes into a class; everyone is writing down notes while the teacher is giving his lecture. Then, suddenly, you see that same student slowly open the door and quickly gets into his seat. The teacher gives him a small glare, and rest of the class is momentary distracted. Then everyone in the class thinks the same thing, “That guy has been late almost three times already.” However, for many students, this scenario happens every semester: a student who is always late to class.  Sean Grennan, a Criminal Justice professor, explained that he had “a student who was 25 to 30 minutes late every week”. He hasn’t had had any problems recently, but he has had his share of students who are perpetually late.  He says that “a student should at least tell a teacher why they are late at the end of class.”

I do agree with Professor Grennan because if you don’t at least explain to your teacher why you’re always late, he may just fail you because he perceives that you are not committed to the class.  So if you have a job or another class that ends at a time that makes it nearly impossible to be on time, talk to your professor and let him, or her, know. Your professor wants you to pass that class and move on in your education, but you have to show your commitment and diligence too.

However, for those of you who are bad at getting up for morning classes and perpetually end up ten minutes late, here are some tips to help:

1. Rather than setting one alarm, set several wake-up calls using your phone to go off two minutes after one another. If you don’t do that and hit the snooze button on your clock, you end up sleeping through your class.
2. Place your alarm in a spot so you can’t reach the snooze button. Even better, put it somewhere that you would have to get out of bed to turn it off.
3. Pack your bag and leave out clothes for the next day. So if you do snooze a little over and you only have about ten minutes to get ready, you’ll have everything set out for you and you won’t end up scrambling for a pair of shoes or your history notebook. Pack a small snack to eat while walking too, so at least you’ll have something to eat if you’re in rush.
4. Set your alarm for ten minutes earlier than normal, so you don’t feel rushed in the morning to get ready.

Hopefully these tips will help those students who are always late.  It’s important to be prompt to class.  Being late is distracting to your professor and fellow students. After all, you’re paying for your classes; you might as well be on time.