Published: September 23, 2010

College. This one little word carries a whole lot of meaning thanks to the never-ending list of stories we hear from our parents, siblings and of course, the media. From our days as kindergarteners until our actual college years, someone always has something to share about the college experience, but how much of it is actually true? Surprisingly, not much.

The Four-Year Stretch

We’ve all heard college described as a four-year experience, but is it really? Graduating in four years seems far from easy, especially when in order to graduate there are a required “completion of a minimum of 124 credits and 36 courses of the three credits or more, with a minimum grade point average of 2.000, a residency of at least 64 credits and a completion of a major with a minimum GPA of 2.000,” according to the Fordham Web site. Add to all that the fact that life is always there to throw a curveball or twenty along the way, and it’s no surprise that not everyone actually finishes Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC) in four years.

In fact, the actual graduation rate at FCLC may surprise you. Based on data for the first-time freshmen who entered in fall 2003, just 64.1 percent of students graduated in four years, and 70.9 percent of students graduated in six, according to Jennifer Lee, research analyst at the Office of Institutional Research at Fordham University.

The 15-Minute Rule 

It’s a Monday morning and the snooze button on your alarm clock has conveniently hit itself, so now you’re running late for class. As you finally make it into the classroom—winded, out of breath and three minutes late—you’re pleasantly surprised to see the professor has yet to arrive. So what do you do next? Grab a seat and start the count down, of course. Only 12 more minutes and you’re free to go, right?

Sadly, that may not be the case, because that 15-minute rule, the one that states it’s okay to leave class if a professor is more than 15 minutes late, isn’t actually a rule. It’s a myth.

Neither the 2010-2011 Lincoln Center Student Handbook nor the Fordham University 2010-2010 Undergraduate Faculty Handbook makes any mention of the 15-minute rule, which means it’s not actually an FCLC policy.

So unless you’re unbelievably lucky and your professor specifically mentions the rule in the syllabus or states it in class, you are not free to leave after 15 minutes, unless of course you’re O.K. with getting an absence for that day.

The First Choice is The Right Choice

For some of us, the decision on what college to attend is a no-brainer. After all, our parents had that picked out before we were born. For others, it’s a long and grueling process that is ultimately decided at the very last minute. No matter what college you painstakingly researched, bought the school sweatshirt for and joined the Facebook network for, it is important to realize that this decision is not a rigid and unbreakable four-year contract.

Sometimes it’s a mistake, and other times it just isn’t what you expected, but whatever the reason is, if you don’t feel right at a school, don’t be afraid to change your mind. And whether transferring in or transferring out, choosing a new college is more common than you think, especially at FCLC.

In fact, based on data collected regarding the first-time freshmen that entered in fall 2008 at FCLC, 87.9 percent of students remained at the college for a second year, and based on numbers from Fall 2009, 364 new undergraduate students transferred into Fordham University that semester alone, according to Lee.

Attendance is Optional

Like most students excited to finally be done with high school, you probably counted down the days for college to begin and the days when you would finally be treated as an adult, which meant respect from your professors, no more calls home to the ’rents when you misbehaved and, most importantly, no more attendance policy.

Unfortunately those dreams of coming into class only when you really had to are still just dreams.

Whether it’s the fact that FCLC has small class sizes, which makes it easy to check attendance, or because Fordham is a Jesuit university and means business when it comes to education, the attendance policy at FCLC is very strict—even stricter than in most high schools.

The attendance policy at Fordham states, “students are expected to attend every class of every course for which they are registered. If an instructor wishes to have a different attendance policy, it must be spelled out in the syllabus distributed to each student registered for the course, including whether and how absences will affect the grade for the course,” according to the Fordham website. Thankfully, FCLC does excuse absences for personal illness, death in the immediate family, religious holidays and/or participation in any University-sanctioned activity, all with proper documentation of course.