Motivations for Going to a Class

張貼日期：Jun 26, 2016 4:2:49 PM

Dorcas Ding

Students in the university have more elections than students in senior high school. And the biggest difference between them is that college students can choose the class they want to attend. Thus, I divide students who attend a course into three types according to their motivations: meeting with friends, passing the courses, and gaining new knowledge.

The first type of students goes to the class because they want to meet with friends. The course schedule of every university student is different. Thus, if we want to see some specific friends, we must come to the class. When this type of students comes into the class, they will bring some troubles to the teachers and other classmates. I remember when I was a freshman, some people in the class were noisy discussing what they were going to do after school. At that time I could accept their behavior because we were just freshmen who like to try any new things. However, this problem still exists in the junior class now. They just come to the class, but their heart has gone to the place where they would have fun after classes with friends sitting around them. Besides, they usually like to talk about some things which aren’t related to the course. It is hard for them to focus in class and easy for them to bother others' learning.

The second type of students is the ones who just want to pass the course and get enough course credits. This second type is a little better than the first type. Unfortunately, they don't care about what knowledge they will get, and they are only concerned whether the grade is above sixty or not. Thus, this type of students is usually unreliable or negligent. In the university, some professors would like to let us make a group presentation. I remember once I was grouped into a group and we needed to make a ten-minute film by ourselves. However, most of my group members thought we just made an easy film and passed the course. We never had good communication, so we made a bad film. What’s worse, when we performed the film in front of all students in that class, our group members left me alone in the classroom suddenly. They didn’t come back until the presentation was finished, and the saddest thing was that the teacher said, “What an awful film!” I got very depressed at that time, but they just felt nothing. Although they weren’t absent from this class and we passed it luckily, I still hate their attitude and lack of motivation.

The last type of students desires to get new knowledge in class. This type of students is the most responsible. They know why they come to classes. It is not because it is a "required" course, but because they want to gain knowledge from the teacher. I’m not sure whether I am this kind of student or not, but I really meet some students who belong to this type. Their attitude encourages me to learn hard for developing a professional skill. I remember when I was a sophomore, I chose a class in another department, and it is a required course of a business department for juniors. I luckily joined a hard-working group for a presentation. Nine students in the group were active in their work. They helped me a lot for doing homework for the course. The impressive thing that they told me was that we needed to study hard in this course and we would get a lot of knowledge.

I know everyone has different opinions about going to a class. Students go to the class for different purposes: meeting with friends, passing the courses, and gaining new knowledge. I consider learning new things should be the primary purpose for attending a class. If we want to have fun with friends, we can do it after class. Besides, we need to be responsible for our duty of being a student, and we should be concerned about not only how to pass the course but also how to get knowledge or any useful experience in class. We should cultivate our professional knowledge when we are still students.