Tuesday, September 15, 2009 5:11 PM,

A student writes:



	Hello Dr. Patt,

	My name is ********** and I am a student in your EE306 (3:30 p.m.-5  
	p.m.) class. The purpose of this email is to inform you that I will  
	not be able to attend Monday?s class because I have to leave town to  
	attend a dentist appointment that I could not change to a day that  
	would not affect my attendance.

	Thank you,
	<<name withheld to protect the student with a dentist appointment>>



This is the third email I have received on this topic, so I decided it was 
time to write to the whole class.

If you remember our first class meeting, I told you I do not take attendance.
So, missing class will not cause any mark against you.

In my view, you are now in college, which means to me that you are responsible 
for keeping up with the class.  And, I will not use mechanisms you are 
familiar with like taking attendance or giving pop quizzes to force you to 
come to class.  If you are not getting anything from the class, you should not 
waste your time in class.  Whether or not you come to class - that is up to 
you.

However, I will measure you on how well you master the material of the course, 
and I am told, coming to class is useful for that purpose.  If you need to 
miss for a dentist appointment or for any other purpose, it is up to you to 
make sure you understand the material you missed.  

I should probably add that unlike high school, it is probably very unlikely 
that you will be able to succeed by cramming for my exams.  EE 306 expects you 
to understand the material to the point where you can use what you learn to 
solve problems you have not seen before.

More than one student has remarked at the end of the course that the "problem"
with EE 306 is that "knowing the material is not enough, Dr. Patt expects you 
to REALLY know it."  (capital letters provided by the students)

My experience is the best way to "really" know the material is to come to 
class, go to discussion section, work the problems, discuss the various points 
with your study partners, and see the TAs or me when something is not 
completely clear.  And to keep up, because once you let it slide, it is really 
tough to catch up.

Good luck with the course.  I hope it is going well so far, and that this 
dentist appointment is just an isolated item that will not get in the way of 
your performance in the course.

Yale Patt