5 tips to help you to get to class on time

Picture this; you are seated ready for class. It is 8:00 a.m. and the other students should be here anytime now. There are maybe 5 of you all seated at the extreme ends of the classroom. These are the best seats depending on whom you ask. You are getting restless now. It is 8:30 a.m. and things are getting awkward. Are you in the right classroom? Even the lecturer is not here, something is not right.

There is nothing as awkward and irritating as arriving to class on time only to find very few people or nobody at all present. What’s even worse is when it is just you and the lecturer staring at each other. You then have to make small talk with the lecturer constantly wondering what is appropriate for the conversation and where to draw the line. This article then is for all you late comers with whatever “valid reasons” you have; here are five tips on how to get to an 8 a.m. class on time. We need you to save the rest of us responsible students from such awkward moments.

1. Move closer to school

Keep your everyday traffic stories to yourself and move within a reasonable distance to the school. You think the houses are expensive? Well so is your transport to and fro and the time wasted. Honestly this is the best advice I could give, simple and clear. Frankly speaking, the only reason you should wake up at 5 a.m. is to meditate on your life and not to spend three hours on the road.

2. Wake up on time

So you have decided that you would rather not move closer to school either because of your parents or maybe you prefer to be closer to nature, good; but please wake up on time. When you picked that 8:00 a.m. class you knew very well where you lived so do your part. However, you also need to understand that you need to allocate time for you breakfast in this schedule. Do not walk into the classroom with your tea, mandazi and samosas distracting the rest of us. We have consciously decided to be responsible adults and doing this makes us hungry although we just ate.

3. No there was no rapture and you know it!

This mostly happens during the first weeks of school. You are the perfect student and come to school on the first week. You reach class and you are the first one. Nothing out of the ordinary there clearly, even your timing is perfect. You sit pretty and alas! Two hours later you are still there, alone. After your three hours are done you confidently tell yourself that you have done your part unlike every other “incompetent” person and walk home satisfied. These people are a special breed. We have all probably been in such a situation and it usually takes at most 30 minutes for a rational person to put two and two together. However, expecting this from these special breed is just asking for too much. Sadly, some may do this only two realize a fortnight later that (insert shocked face) “It was the wrong class!” They never even realize this on their own. Usually, it is accidentally while talking to a friend. I have no advice for such people, some things cannot be fixed.

5. Common-sense wins!

The undertone in this article is common-sense. If you lack that, we are wasting each other’s time. So you have woken up on time and you are in the matatu. About 10 minutes to school, traffic suddenly comes to a standstill. The rest of us would alight then walk or run whichever we deem necessary but you on the other hand will need to reach the stage to feel your money’s worth, so you stay in that jam for the next 30 minutes. You have now arrived and your class is on the fifth floor, the elevator is on the seventh floor and it will probably make several stops on its way but you wait, just because. We can’t really blame you, can we?  I mean, you would never manage to run up the stairs with your tea and mandazis would you? Friends, common-sense wins!

Related Topics

Class time