Tips from a junior: Why you should use office hours

Going in for office hours can seem intimidating or sometimes even a bit scary. The fact of the matter is, it is perfectly okay to ask for help—your professor wants to help you!

After struggling this semester with my accounting class, I finally decided to try office hours. I went in for office hours at least twice a week, and I can confidently tell you, it made a huge difference. Going in for office hours not only strengthened my understanding of the material but also helped me to develop a bond with my professor. He was able to see the amount of effort that I put into trying to understand the material and would go out of his way at the end of lecture to come up to me and see if I had grasped what we had just learned. 

I turned to Professor Erica Ellingson, the director of the First-Year Seminar program, for some advice as to why students should attend office hours: “It is not a disappointment or a surprise when a student says they need help with the class, instead we’re happy to have the opportunity to help our students.”

Why you should go to office hours

According to Professor Ellingson, “Office hours are the most useful and underutilized resource on campus.” She shared several benefits of office hours with me:

• You can get extra help in coursework, ask for extra practice problems and learn by asking questions and going over course material repeatedly—once in office hours and once in lecture, or multiple times in office hours. 
• You can ask for individual assessment and feedback on work, such as old exams and essays, as well as how to improve them in the future. 
• If many students come into office hours, you can make friends and find study partners. 
• You can get to know your professors. This may give you more confidence to ask questions and participate in class.
• You can let your professors get to know you. This can be especially helpful if your asking for references later on for internships, jobs or scholarships. 

For those of you who are still discouraged about going into office hours, “Bring a friend, even if it's someone who’s not in your class. Sometimes having another person there can help students get over the discomfort.”

What to ask

Not sure what to ask when you go in for office hours? Fortunately, Professor Ellingson has provided us with some answers.

“Students should ask questions about class. But most importantly, they should bring a question that isn’t just ‘help me,’” she offers. “They should bring specific questions that show their interest, or show a concept they would like to dig deeper into.

“You could say, ‘Can you help me with homework problem No. 4,’ but then also have a question you can ask that demonstrates your knowledge so that, rather than just asking for help, you’re contributing an idea, question or conversation to the professor. For example, ‘I don’t understand problem No. 4. In class we talked about dark matter and galaxies, and where does the dark matter come from?’”

How office hours help everyone

Office hours not only benefit the student but also the professor.

“Our profession is to teach, and we like to practice and do that. A student who gives us the opportunity to learn about what is working and not working for them gives us insights as to what we can fix and do better,” states Professor Ellingson.

If five students come in and are all confused on the same concept, then this indicates to the professor there is a disconnect and they need to change the way they are attempting to explain the concept. 

I’ll admit, sometimes it takes that first visit to get over the uneasiness of going in for help, but take it from someone who’s been in your shoes: You have everything to gain and nothing to lose!