HAYLEY ROSS | OPINION COLUMNIST
An absolutely absurd application called Class120 is available in the app store. It allows parents to see if their child has been going to class or if they have been skipping.
In other words, it is an app that will allow parents to virtually creep on their children.
It was created in Indiana, so some students may start to get those texts from their parents asking them to send their class schedule. Later they may receive similar texts asking why they decided not to attend their science class today.
While this seems harsh, the app has good intentions.
College is expensive, and every time students skip class, they are losing a chunk of that money. Some, no matter how late their first class of the day is, will not have the motivation to get up and go to class. This app ensures that their parents will not be blind-sided by the end-of-the-semester abysmal grades. The parents can threaten their child after each class they miss.
However, and this is a big however, that is not what college is for.
If we are paying to go to school, universities should have the student’s best interest at heart. If a student is not going to class, then the professor should ask why that is and provide some form of incentive to attend the class. Each professor has an attendance policy. It may be strict or lax, but their job is to enforce it. The parents should not be involved.
Sophomore Rachel McCrum agrees.
“I wouldn’t want my parents to have that much control because college is a time for personal growth and responsibility,” McCrum said. “The students already have guidelines set by their professors that outline consequences for missed class.”
Sophomore Olivia Carroll thinks the app is extremely counterproductive.
“The purpose of college is to allow students to learn independence as well as responsibility for his or her actions,” Carroll said. “This app defeats the purpose of self-growth that students obtain through being on their own at college.”
I completely agree.
College is a small step between being a child and being an adult in the real world with a professional job. My mom isn’t going to wake me up every morning when I am 40, give me a hug and a packed lunch and tell me to get up and go to work. College is the time to make that transition and start to discipline oneself. And if a student is having trouble with that, then it shouldn’t be the parents’ responsibility. It should be the faculty’s, the school’s and, most importantly, the student’s.
But truthfully, the thing that bothers me most about this app is the lack of trust a parent would have.
Senior Cameron Ballew is annoyed at the thought of his parents downloading the app.
“That would be a little weird if they had that, because it would be a helicopter parent 24/7,” Ballew said. “They should be able to trust me that I am going to class.”
I know the first thing I would say to my parents is how offended I am that they would ask me to download the app and send them my schedule. If my parents thought I would be cutting class often and wasting their money, then they shouldn’t be sending me to college in the first place.
Work ethic is important in college because it gives students the building blocks to be successful for the rest of their lives.
Yes, college should include having fun, as well as studying, but as both Carroll and McCrum said, it is the time to be responsible for oneself. If I have proven myself through high school that my parents are still letting me stay at Butler, why would they need the app?
So, if your parents find out about this and ask you to download it, I urge you to say no.
Let your conscience make you go to class, or else the angel on your shoulder will stop sounding sweet and will start sounding way too much like your dad when you got caught sneaking out at 2 in the morning (hoping that wasn’t just me).
