Sophomore Gabrielle Friedman, a Hatchet columnist, encourages professors to do away with mandatory attendance policies, as students will show up if the class is engaging.

I’ve seen a distributing trend in some of my classes this semester: A professor makes class attendance mandatory and students feel required to attend, only to not pay attention.

I’ve seen students polish off a paper, read The Washington Post and spend 50 minutes on Facebook. This is not because students are inherently lazy or easily distracted, but because they seek to maximize their time. Mandatory attendance policies may achieve their surface goal of getting bodies to the classroom, but no attendance policy will force our minds to be there.

The goal of a professor should be to engage a classroom of curious minds, not provide a hub from which students blast Tweets or status updates.