HALIFAX, N.S. — Dalhousie University students spent the majority of September unsure of when, or if, their fall semester would begin. Naturally, when a start date for classes was announced, students took to social media to celebrate. However, after examining several students’ social media activity and their historic attendance data, the Dalhousie Mackerel, in collaboration with upper-year statistics students, uncovered harrowing results.
Our study suggests that over 50 per cent of students celebrating the return to classes will have skipped at least one class, and over 20 per cent will have skipped three or more classes, by Oct. 1. These students shared an average of three posts each on their Instagram stories, celebrating the end of the labour disruption.
Statistics experts insisted on noting that the sample size for this study was 10 students, drawn exclusively from the writer’s Instagram followers, rendering our results “invalid.” The writer, however, feels that this is “irrelevant” and sees this attempt to invalidate the data as “an attempt to suppress vital information.” We invite readers to draw their own conclusions from this study and hope they do not feel pressured to agree with the statistics students just because it’s their “area of expertise.”
The Mackerel was determined to get to the bottom of the discrepancy between social media activity and attendance, so we spoke to Chris Eliis, who attended two rallies and shared 15 posts about the DFA lockout, but also has a 90 per cent probability of skipping a class in the first week.
“Oh, I don’t want to go to class, I’m just here for the piece of paper at the end,” says Ellis. “But I live on Coburg Road, and those guys were always out there with their bells. Don’t get me started on the honking. I’m glad they’re getting a fair wage, but mostly I just wanted them back in their natural environment.”
From this information, we at the Mackerel can only conclude that the majority of students do not care about their learning. We attempted to reconcile with the statistics department; however, they remained insistent that our findings were “a gross misrepresentation of the student body” and “an insult to the scientific process.”
By Ryan Van De Wiel