Why You Should Go To Office Hours
One of the biggest regrets I had after finishing college was that I didn’t go to office hours more. Once I started going—and to be fair, some classes forced me to go—I realized how invaluable they were to my educational experience.
The barriers to attending office hours can be fairly high. Sometimes you get a scary professor and just wouldn't want to spend any more time with them outside of the classroom. Sometimes you feel like you don’t know anything and don’t want your lack of knowledge to be exposed. Sometimes it’s simply hard to make the time to go, whether it be because of other commitments or out of sheer laziness. Trust me, you should go, and I have three key reasons why.
Assuming that you would want to go to office hours for help on something specific (i.e. an assignment, paper, upcoming test, etc.), the first reason to go is that going requires you to be prepared for the meeting and thus combats procrastination. For example, if you want to meet your professor about an upcoming paper assignment, you would need to come to that meeting with at least a basic idea of what you would want to write about which would require some research beforehand.
The second reason for going is that you get actual help from your professor. Oftentimes, you will not receive the exact answer you’re looking for (professors want you to do the work yourself), but you will get pointed in the right direction and can have your work checked to ensure that you’re on the right track. This might look something like getting referred to which part of the textbook to look at or in what lecture the pertinent material was covered. Your professors should be more than happy to help.
The third and final reason is that going to office hours can beneficially affect your overall grade
(not factoring in getting help from specific assignments) and even affect your plans after college. Indeed, some classes do have a participation grade in which office hours play a role along with in class participation, so you should definitely go then. Furthermore, if you’re considering grad school, you not only want to ask for a letter of recommendation from a professor whose class you did well in, but also from a professor you knew well (e.g. through all the time spent in class and during office hours).
There really aren't any downsides to going to office hours as long as you have the wherewithal to do so. Start going, and I promise you won’t regret it.
By mentor Joshua, a Columbia graduate who majored in Film and Media Studies and English.
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