As finals and graduation steadily approach, some students question whether they should drop a class.
And with ten weeks to decide prior to the April 8 deadline of being able to do so, it’s safe to say they’ve had time to deliberate the pros and cons.
Director of Academic and Career Advising Dr. Pat Halloran said that the deadline has always been 11 weeks into the semester.
“It allows students to pass the midterm, to assess, to chat with the professor and then make an informed decision,” Halloran explained.
Halloran said, however, that students are highly recommended to seek advising before finalizing a withdrawal.
She said that, around three or four years ago, the academic and career advising posted a “screaming red message” intended for students to pursue advising if they were contemplating withdrawing a class.
Halloran said that, while withdrawing from a class doesn’t affect a student’s GPA, doing so could pose issues later down the line.
“If a student drops below full time [12 credits], it could impact their financial aid, health insurance or even residential housing,” Halloran said.
“You have to be full-time student to live on campus.”
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Halloran said it could also impact when the student could graduate, and said that these concerns are why she advocates so much for advising and talking with a professor before making a definite decision.
“Students are [often] hesitant, they might have [certain] perceptions before they have a face-to-face with their professor,” Halloran said.
Halloran also said attendance is a critical part of a course, and that some students might be more likely to drop a course if they’ve missed too many classes.
“People have to pay attention to attendance, read the syllabus, but don’t drop just because of that,” she said.
Halloran said that missing a class doesn’t just hurt your grade; it can be financially unwise as well.
For an average in-state student taking four four-credit classes, based on the 2016-2017 year tuition, the approximate cost per class is $49.
For an out-of-state student, it’s about $86.
Keene State College Senior Joe Martino said he feels like his money isn’t spent wisely in one of his classes, since his professor doesn’t put in the kind of effort Martino said he feels the professor should.
“He just reads from the screen and plays videos,” Martino said.
“He did our midterm on a screen and just went through it with us.”
As a student paying his own way through college, Martino said that, if he could still graduate on time, he would withdraw from the class.
“It’s a waste of my money and my time,” he said.
KSC Junior Alyssa Brown said it’s the extra time she puts in that helps her so that she doesn’t have to drop the class or retake it.
“I would rather have a withdrawal [mark] than an ‘F’,” she said.
Brown said how using your resources can benefit a student struggling.
“I’m so bad at math so I went to the math center [on campus] and it helped,” she said.
However while she was at New Hampshire Technical Institute, Brown said that she had had to drop a class with a month of it left, because it was just too challenging.
Brown said she hasn’t let this let her down, “School’s hard, so you just have to find ways to make it work,” she said.
KSC Junior Carli Davis said being a student athlete in addition to having classes and a social life has made it difficult to manage her schedule.
Davis explained how she thought she would be fine taking a Spanish course since she had taken French in high-school, but then realized with her busy schedule of track and other classes that she just couldn’t handle it and had to drop the course.
“Spanish wasn’t what I needed, and I didn’t want it to hurt my GPA,” she said.
Davis said that it’s difficult for student athletes to manage class work, a social life and their sports and that it is because of this that she isn’t part of the track team anymore.
“You have to cut some things to put more effort into other things,” she said.
“I can still run on the side, but I have other priorities.”
While Davis said she could sympathize with people who did withdraw so late from a class, she did find it surprising a student is allowed to withdraw from a class only four weeks before the end of the semester.
She said, “If that class was hurting someone’s GPA, I get it, but it’s crazy [because] on the other hand, it could allow some people to slack off.”
Dorothy England can be contacted at dengland@kscequinox.com
