One Victoria student has taken an innovative approach to improve his class attendance.
Rhett Shannon, a commerce student, once lived semi nocturnally: he rarely woke before noon, and tended to stay up working until the early hours of the morning.
“It’s the illicit connotations of 2am that really get me going,” he told Salient. “On my assignments, I mean.”
Unfortunately, this meant that Shannon did not attend any of his morning lectures or tutorials for the entirety of Trimester Two.
However, everything changed with daylight savings.
“I realised: if we can change the time to suit the day, why not change it even more, so it suits me even better?” he said.
When everyone else moved the clocks forward by an hour on 30 September, Shannon moved his clock forward four extra hours. “My phone thinks I’m in Guatemala city, and that it’s yesterday,” he said.
With his classes now starting at 1pm, rather than 8am, Shannon is able to attend the last two weeks of lectures.
“Some people think I’m just lying to myself, but they’re wrong. I’m much happier this way,” he said.
At time of press, Shannon was going to bed. It was 3am in Guatemala.