Office Hours, Part 2

Do you ever go to your professors' office hours? I have written about office hours before; in that post, I said, "office hours are the time that your professors specifically designated to meet with students, answer questions, help with homework or essays, and so on. This doesn't mean they won't meet with you other times as well, by appointment. But office hours are YOUR time." But I want to spend more time here on why you should go to office hours.

Here are 3 great reasons why you should go to office hours. 

1. Get help on class material you don't understand. This is the first, most obvious reason to go to office hours. This is time that your professors have specifically set aside with the intent to help you better understand the course content and assignments. They are there for you during that time. If you cannot make it to the designated office hours, ask if they can meet outside of those hours on a different day or time. 
   
   
2. Getting to know your professors may come in handy at some point in the future. There will be many times over the course of your college career when you will need the support of your professors. They can write letters of recommendation if you want to go to graduate school or med school or law school. Professors can nominate students for awards and scholarships. And it is a million times easier to write these letters of recommendation or nomination when we actually know our students. If we don't know you, we are going to say something blandly nice, and it won't be a very strong letter. If we do know you, we can rave about how wonderful you are and give specific examples from our interactions and from your work. 
   
   
3. Your professors (almost always) really care about you and your success. We want to know if you're doing well or struggling. We want to connect you to resources and support and scholarships and anything else we can think of to ensure your success. But we don't always know how to help you if we don't know you. If you give your professors a chance to know you, you'll often be pleasantly surprised about the ways that they can help ease your path and make your college experience better.