“I don’t know what to say.”
“I didn’t know that’s what they were for.”
“I feel awkward.”
If you’ve come to me any time in the last two years with a concern about a class or have participated in my weekly student hours, you know that the first question I ask is this: how many times have you been to your professor’s office hours during this course? Those are just some of the responses I get. Most of the time my question is just met with silence.
Why should you go to your professor’s office hours?
Because there’s evidence (that’s right, it’s evidence-based) that students who meet with their professors outside of class (through office hours) are more successful.
You want to be successful in your nursing program, right?
Look on your syllabus or D2L classroom for your professor’s office hours. You found them? Now make plans to be there during that time. If your professor is meeting with another student, you may have to wait a few minutes – either in the virtual waiting room or in an actual chair in the nursing department.
You’re going to have to get over your feeling of awkwardness the first time you to go office hours. If you’re not sure what to do or say, I recommend this: “Hi. I’m [name] and I’m in your [course name] class. This is what I’ve been doing to study for this class [explain what you’ve been doing]. Do you have any suggestions for me?”
There are a couple of things that you shouldn’t do. You shouldn’t put the responsibility for what to do to be successful in the class on your professor and you shouldn’t make any excuses about anything that’s going on with you.
There are a couple of things that you should do. You should thank your professor for the time and you should leave the meeting and do what the professor suggested.
Being a nursing educator myself, I can tell you with 100% certainty that your professors want you to be successful. In addition to the fact that we’ve chosen this profession to help students be successful, our jobs are much easier when students are doing well!
So, put your feelings of awkwardness aside and go to office hours and report back.