During your time at WSU, there will be and have been many times where you might benefit from meeting with your professor during office hours. This might be to ask questions about class content, clarify any confusion on your understanding of a topic, inquire about an assignment grade, or to review an assignment. Regardless, attending office hours either in person or virtually in a Zoom class can be intimidating or scary, especially if you are struggling in your course. Nevertheless, office hours serve as a wonderful tool for you to not only get help with your course, but provides an opportunity to develop a professional or mentoring relationship with your instructors.
Here are some key reasons you should be attending office hours for all your courses:
1. Get to know your instructors and build a solid relationship with them
Office hours provide an awesome opportunity for you to get some one-on-one time with your instructors. Faculty and instructors are great resources not only for help with your courses but can also be great resources for future letters of recommendation for jobs, internships, and graduate school applications. Additionally, if undergraduate research is something you are interested in getting involved in, talking to your faculty is step one in that process! They are the ones that you can work with to get involved in their research or help you find a research lab that fits your interests.
2. Clarify and ask questions about course material
Office hours are the perfect place to ask clarifying questions that you might have following a course lecture. Come prepared with questions or areas of confusion and ask your instructor to provide additional examples and explain concepts differently or in more detail. The best time to get clarification on confusing topics is soon after you first learn them so make sure to get into office hours as soon as you can! That way you can continue on studying and building on what you are learning without any confusion.
3. Nervous about how you are doing in your course, get study ideas
There is no one better to ask for study tips than the person who is giving you the test! Talk to your instructor to get some ideas of how to best prepare for your exams or quizzes. Talk to them about your current study habits and how to improve those habits to best prepare you for your exams.
4. Syllabus, assignment, and due date questions
Sometimes assignments, project instructions, or class policies can be tricky. If re-reading the syllabus or assignment instructions doesn’t provide answers to your questions, go into to office hours to get the answers you need! Better to get clarification than to do an assignment incorrectly.
5. Review your grades
The last and maybe best reason to go into office hours is to talk about your grades! Whether its your grade on a specific assignment or your overall course grade, your instructor is the number one person to explain where you stand in the course. Asking questions about why you got marked off points on an assignment is crucial to improve on future assignments. If you’re nervous about where you stand in the course, talk to your instructor about your options moving forward and what you can do to improve your grade.
