Health vs. GPA

I spent last week spreading my germs across campus.

Just about every garbage can from the Sample Gates to the Herman B Wells Library provided a burial ground for my used Kleenexes. During an exam Thursday, I sneezed eight times in a row. My peers glanced up from their Scantron sheets in unison to see who was sneezing her brains out in the front. I looked down sheepishly and tucked my tissue into my sleeve.       

It certainly wasn’t my proudest moment, but I shouldn’t even have been in class. I belonged in bed. But my bed had never felt so far away or so unrealistic.

I was in no condition to be roaming around among the healthy. I was a walking germ capable of infecting anyone within 3 feet of me. Germs travel more than 30 inches when a person sneezes, so I send my apologies to the students who sat around me during the exam. I should also apologize to the kid I coughed on for the entire bus ride afterward. I’m assuming he caught my illness, and I hope he gets well soon.

I can’t verify the diagnosis, because I never even made it to the health center to get checked. I was too busy to worry about my health – I had exams to study for and classes to attend.

When I called my mom explaining how I felt the way a person feels after being hit by a train, she suggested that I get some sleep. It sounded so sensible – and so tempting. The problem was that getting sleep would require me to do the unspeakable: skip class.

I then weighed my priorities. I asked myself what was more important to me: my grades or my health. Many of my instructors include their attendance policies on their syllabi. The syllabus for my Spanish class states that students are only allotted three absences for the entire semester.

I was a zombie chasing throat lozenges with coffee, coughing through lectures, sneezing through exams and disturbing and infecting everyone around me, and I still went to that class. I felt obligated in the interest of preserving my grade.

As college students, dealing with our health is an inconvenience. I realize attendance is important and students who skip class regularly should be penalized, but there are some policies that are unrealistic. For example, I’m enrolled in a course in which the instructor will fail a student for missing even one class. I’m making it to that class even if medics have to roll me in on a gurney.

But that attendance policy is absurd. There are legitimate reasons for students to miss class, and instructors should take that into account when developing their policies and drafting their syllabi.

Over the course of an entire semester, circumstances will arise that might interfere with a student’s class schedule. There should be leeway provided for those hypothetical circumstances. Students should not have to choose between their health and their cumulative grade point average.