So today is my first class of the semester! And of course it has graded attendance

Graded attendance is my pet peeve grading policy. Also, grading on the vague, nebulous "participation" is also sometimes frustrating as well

Graded/mandatory attendance is frustrating because on one hand it treats the students like children, and on the other hand it ignores that life just sometimes happens and some students can manage just well-enough without going, or can accept the consequences. Like an adult

Participation grading, for me, is a little more of a grey area. On one hand, forced participation is awful and some people (me included) aren't built for it. I'm frankly bad at it unless I really have time to formulate my thoughts on the material

Not even taking into account things like anxiety or whatever. On the other hand, it lets a prof kind of give "good enough" free points to students. Which they could probably do in a better way

OR just lean heavily on the idea of pass-fail for courses. Have I done well enough to show moderate competency in the subject? Then okay. Grades are generally not a great measure, especially research. I could be an awesome, thoughtful scientist and get kneecapped by classes