Website helps students decide whether to skip

Classes are long, monotonous, tedious and a whole list of other adjectives that imply “I don’t want to go.” For many of us, the commuting aspect that many UH students bring to the table only adds to the boredom. Follow that with the parking situation (which is fun if you like long walks.)

But for some classes, it just seems like a giant waste of time — and time is very important to the University’s history. The motto for UH is “In Tempore,” which is Latin for “In Time.” It’s almost as if the very foundation upon which the University stands is telling students, “Don’t worry, you’ll get to it in time.” However, it could also be telling students, “Get here on time, you signed up for the class.”

So, what are students going to do? There is a new website that offers an answer to the students’ question that has plagued UH since its foundation in 1927 — should I skip class today? Now you can go to www.skipclasscalculator.com to find your answer.

Users are presented with 10 simple questions. Depending on your answers, the website will tell you if your class is worth going to today.

The questions are simple enough that students have probably been asking them for years while lying in bed. But the genius in it is that it doesn’t have the debate that goes on in one’s head. It’s a simple yes or no, followed by an almost witty suggestion.

This site was created by Jim Filibert during his Bowling Green State University days. According to the website, “The idea came to me (Filibert) one day in February 2010. I woke up one cold morning and debated whether or not I wanted to get out of bed to go to class.”

He then went on a search to find something like his website. After not being able to find something similar, he ended up skipping class to start planning out what is now www.skipclasscalculator.com.

While the website is a novel idea, it’s something that students may want to look harder at before basing their academic lives on it. There is an outlook to it that is similar to that of WebMD — a site that is taken seriously by people who should actually see a doctor before making their own diagnoses.

The reality of the situation is that going to class is important, but there are situations that present themselves during the course of the semester that outweigh the need to go to class.

Part of going to college is learning how to prioritize. Figuring out what is important is a significant lesson to learn — one which is better left in the hands of the people that have to live with the decision. However, if students just want to have fun or get a second opinion, the website is a great place to go. Its questions are well thought out and the design of the website is enjoyable for students looking for time to kill before they have to make it to a class that they wish they could skip.