Office hours held by faculty members are some of the most underused opportunities available to students, according to Gary Comstock, a professor of philosophy.

Professors hold office hours as a time for students to come meet with them if they have questions about class material or simply want to talk to the professor. 

“I can’t say that I have a lot of students that attend office hours,” Comstock said. “Only a small percentage come. Those students who do come tend to be either high achievers or students who are struggling in the class.” 

Likewise, Jeremiah Feducia, teaching assistant professor and co-director of Undergraduate Studies in Chemistry, said his office hour attendance is also low.

“Office hour percentage for chemistry probably as a whole is less than 5 percent,” Feducia said.

Comstock said the most valuable benefit that students can attain from attending office hours are not necessarily measured by the grade they receive, but by the confidence they gain in comprehension of the material.

“Usually what stands in the way of a good grade in a class is just confidence,” Comstock said. “And typically, an instructor or professor is just going to boost your confidence when you go speak with them and make you feel like you understand more than you did before you talk with them.” 

However, compared to Comstock, Feducia said his students who come to office hours perform differently. 

“The type of student that I usually get end up, not start as, really good students,” Feducia said. “Normally, their first exam will be a dumpster fire. For the rest of the time they get their stuff together and figure out what my level of expectations are.”

Feducia said the level of expectations teachers have is a standard students should understand and work toward.

“When a student gets to a test, they might think that what they see in class is the level of expectation for the test, and that’s certainly not the case,” Feducia said. “The idea is that you take what you learn from class and you build upon that on your own time, whether that’s going to SI, tutorial or coming to office hours and then we set some level of expectation with any assessment, be it a quiz or test.” 

But sometimes these tutorial services and other aid may not be as effective, according to Feducia. 

“They can lead students astray,” Feducia said. “Ideally, the number one place students should go is office hours.”

Nikita Chintalapudi, a freshman studying biology and organic chemistry tutor, said she considers herself a frequent office hour attendee. 

“It was probably the most helpful thing I could have done for myself,” Chintalapudi said. “I think that tutoring is to complement resources like office hours, SI and the textbook – not meant to replace them.”

Chintalapudi said tutors are taught to act like guides, where they can direct students to information, rather than give information to students. 

“The goal is to help the tutees become more independent learners, not to necessarily get them a good grade in the class,” Chintalapudi said.

According to Chintalapudi, office hours and tutoring have different goals. Office hours are a time for the instructor to take time to explain concepts again to students and give them problems to work through. 

Tutoring helps a student figure out what resources to use and how to use them with other aid on the side, Chintalapudi said.

“Honestly, office hours are more helpful in terms of trying to understand the material,” Chintalapudi said. 

According to Lisa Bullard, a professor of chemical engineering, professors are changing the face of office hours and the way in which they are being held.

“Some professors hold online hours with a chat or message board, where someone might post a message,” Bullard said. “The professor might say, ‘between 3 and 5 I will be checking the chat. I will make comments or try to respond to questions.’” 

Bullard said this could be very beneficial for students who live off campus and cannot attend office hours in a professor’s office or if students have classes during a professor’s office hours. 

Nonetheless, despite the different disciplines, there seems to be a consensus among faculty members.

“We have office hours because we want people to come to them,” Bullard said.