Counterpoint: Defending Mandatory Attendance

At 10:30 a.m. last Wednesday, I turned to my friend and noticed that nearly half the usual students were missing from our linguistics lecture. “Where did everyone go?” I asked. As I later learned, most had gone home for the long weekend—it was, after all, ‘no big deal’ to skip an optional-attendance class. 

Since starting college, my friends understandably have skipped some of their lectures, arguing that professors spend too much time posing questions to the class and that it’s more efficient to sleep in and catch up later—at double speed. By the end of high school, I was used to this phenomenon—my friends mysteriously plagued with a chronic case of “senioritis.” Nonetheless, I was surprised to see it continue in my first year in college. In fairness, we all worked hard in high school, and many view college as the reward for four grueling years. Still, we are here to learn—and it’s surprising that the University maintains such a lenient attendance policy. 

This leniency undermines Harvard’s stated mission to educate “the citizens and citizen-leaders for our society…beginning in the classroom with exposure to new ideas.” Optional attendance turns lectures into a means to a grade, rather than a space to cultivate intellectual curiosity. While it is easy to assume we already know what interests us, skipping class denies us the opportunity for genuine exploration. The University should implement a form of mandatory attendance, or some abridged version of one. Optional attendance encourages minimum effort, stifles enthusiasm for learning, and removes critical structure from students’ daily lives.

If a student is capable of studying alone, they might argue there’s no tangible benefit to attending class. These students are wrong. Here at Harvard, we are taught by experts in their fields, leaders of groundbreaking research—fifty-two Nobel laureates among our former and current faculty and countless other distinguished scholars. Who are we, then, to assume we know better than professors do on how their courses should be taught? By only attending lectures when grades depend on it, we reject what these experts have deemed essential and most interesting for us to know. 

We also close ourselves off to subjects we might have loved. College exists to expose us to the unexpected, to disciplines and ideas we never even knew existed. When we reduce learning to completing p-sets and cramming for tests, we set ourselves up for failure. We trade depth for efficiency, curiosity for compliance. 

For example, a couple of weeks ago, I opted not to attend my linguistics lecture, prioritizing sleep after a late night of working on a p-set. When I was reviewing the slides and notes from a friend, I realized that the lecture covered a linguist I had extensively researched in high school. I immediately regretted missing the opportunity to learn about him from a Harvard professor and not being able to engage with the rest of the class on a subject I was so passionate about. Even though this lecture was unrecorded, had I had the opportunity to watch it back, my engagement would still be limited. I wouldn’t be able to raise my hand, and instead of sitting in the lecture hall forced to be present, I would treat the video more as a chore to quickly complete. I had assumed I knew what was best for me, and in doing so, I was confronted with what I had missed only after it was too late. 

Harvard has a responsibility to give students a full liberal arts education, one that demands active engagement, not passive consumption. With recorded lectures, it’s easy to fall behind, bingeing several in one night without truly absorbing the material. And we all know that test performance rarely reflects mastery; students memorize for hours only to forget the material the second the exam is over. Harvard should want students to learn lessons from their courses beyond the best test-taking strategies. They should process and employ key takeaways outside the classroom. While p-sets might attempt to measure understanding, consistent presence in lecture is what ensures true learning.

Some argue that college is primarily a pre-professional endeavor, and that grades alone should not matter. But that’s not the purpose of a liberal arts education. Harvard requires General Education and distributional courses not to restrict students, but to ensure a comprehensive intellectual experience. If the University believes that STEM students should study ethics and humanities students quantitative reasoning, the same logic applies to attendance. To experience the liberal arts fully, students must actually show up. 

There are instances when students should not show up to a lecture, such as due to illness and mental health issues. Still, a more relaxed policy exacerbates problems when students cannot come; in smaller seminar-style classes, when a student is unable to attend for these reasons, the student works with a TF or professor to make up the material they missed. While it is important for students to show up to a seminar in particular since a smaller class impacts learning for all members, their mandatory attendance importantly keeps students accountable. With optional attendance, we make reaching out less accessible and don’t allow students to fall back on the support structures that Harvard prides itself on. 

The University already gives students ample flexibility. Of the 32 courses required for graduation, only about 12 are core requirements, allowing wide freedom in scheduling. While students understandably want to prioritize sleep, homework, or clubs, the added structure of mandatory attendance is a net positive. Most lectures meet only twice a week for about an hour and fifteen minutes and one discussion section. The time “saved” by skipping is negligible compared to the loss in engagement. Regular attendance discourages the mindset of ‘just this once,’ a habit that easily slips into indifference. Students should absolutely manage their own schedules, but also learn to plan around fixed commitments.

This is not to say balancing time is easy. I’ve struggled too—in high school and at Harvard—to juggle academics, social life, and extracurriculars. I’m not perfect with my time, but if I had to attend every lecture, I’d spend less of it on TikTok and other distractions that add little value to my day. If Harvard makes attendance mandatory, the only thing we’ll all lose is the time we already waste. And while I’m sure the students who skipped class last Wednesday appreciated the extra day home, they missed out on an amazing lecture about the linguistic processes behind word memorization. 

Juila Bouchut ’29 (julia_bouchut@college.harvard.edu) embraces mandatory attendance, though she appreciates the occasional sleeping in.