makes awful whirring noise

as an etymologyst, it really bugs me when i get n to my work

I'll generally accept it if you send any excuse prior to the lecture unless it's becoming a habit - in those rare cases I'll happily work with them to try and figure out a solution. 80% of the time it's family medical appointments or childcare scheduling issues (and my gosh I am so happy to accommodate people dealing with that) and the rare cases it's not we can usually find a way to make up for what they've missed. I've got a couple colleagues that only accept excuses with a doctor's note, and the best thing I can say about them is that they're ~~retiring soon~~ incredibly passionate about teaching.

(none of this applies to freshman courses, though. We've learned that being really strict about attendance for freshman year boosts passing rates by like 30%, it's just crazy.)

While it's good that you are disciplined enough that you can succeed without it, many students benefit greatly from a rigid structure more in line with the educational environment they experienced up to that point. After freshman year, attendance requirements are usually greatly relaxed since people have gotten into the swing of things (like not having to ask to to go to the bathroom anymore, god what even is the public school system). Personally I don't care if you show up or not, you'll learn something important either way and if someone uninterested isn't there it means I have more time for the other students.

Also I can 100% promise that clicker thing was a contractual obligation from the publisher and not the instructor's idea. Those things are fuckin' awful to support on the instructor's side, and goddamn Pearson managed to tie using their shitfucking software (including those goddamn clickers) to the state and federal grants unis rely on for funding. Fuck pearson.