Do more Keene students hit their snooze button or decide to end their day early?
Between social events, sports practices and art shows, sometimes college life can get overwhelming, making classes seem exhausting to attend. 100 Keene State students were surveyed in the Zorn Dining Commons on whether they were more likely to skip class in the morning or afternoon.
“It’s awful to sit through a lecture at eight in the morning,” said sophomore Maya Wedge. “Sometimes I purposely just let my alarm ring.”
Wedge runs for the women’s cross-country team, where practice times vary. Wedge explained how this can create an inconsistent sleep schedule, where some days she can sleep in because she doesn’t have practice until the afternoon. This makes waking up early for a morning class much more difficult, according to Wedge.
Some athletes on other sports teams agree. First-year Sean McBride, a player for the men’s ice hockey team, said, “Most of us [hockey players] are much more likely to skip in the morning. We have early morning practices so we’re just fried afterwards. [My teammate] is skipping his morning class right now.”
However, skipping in the afternoon seemed to be just as popular.
“It’s easier to get morning classes over with,” said first-year Kallie Warner. “By the afternoon, I just want to be done.”
Junior Tyler Robinson stated, “There are just times where I have a 2 p.m. or 4 p.m. and really don’t feel like going. At that point, I just want to be done with my day.”
Some professors have also noticed a trend. Phil Barker, political science professor and honors program coordinator, noticed that his students skipped more afternoon classes.
“I think it has to do with the class levels I teach during those times,” said Barker. “I have a lot of my 101 classes in the morning and higher levels in the afternoons. Attendance is typically higher and more consistent in the morning.”
Some students had a different take. Sophomore Alyssa Edgren, a biology-chemistry double major, said she has never skipped a class. However, she still had an opinion based on her workload.
“I’ve never skipped a class, so I can’t say which I do more frequently,” said Edgren. “If I could though, I would definitely skip a morning class. If it was a science class, no way, but any other one I’d consider.”
So which one wins? Though very close, 56% of students reported skipping class in the morning.
More college students choose to take afternoon classes as it lines up with their level of alertness, and the time of day highly impacts your grade, according to a BestColleges article.
Similar results have been found across the country.
“Early morning university classes are associated with impaired sleep and academic performance,” according to an article from the National Institutes of Health. Researchers analyzed the digital traces of 23,391 college students, where they found early start times to be “detrimental for students’ sleep and daily functioning,” making afternoon classes more appealing for students and causing them to skip more morning classes.
