Every teaching assistant, professor and random instructor pretty much starts each quarter the same way. After reading the syllabus and giving a cursory summary of expectations, they stress the importance of office hours.

What’s the huge deal with office hours? They’re intended, as we all know, to help support classroom learning. When students don’t understand something or want to discuss vital topics and theories, office hours are the designated time for them to find their TA and engage in academically meaningful discourse. It is also common for atrociously performed tests, quizzes and papers to come back with notes along the lines of “see me in office hours.”

Actually, this might not be a universal truth so much as something I come across — the point is, office hours never seem to be used except by brilliant over-achievers.

Of course, it sounds kind of funny to say it that way, but last quarter, I had an excellent drama TA. He made a big deal about the people who visited him both for help in the class and for guidance in outside auditions. He was genuinely thrilled to help students as much as possible, stressing this whenever he could. And of course, these students were always the cutest, brightest, smartest, most engaging, dramatic people in the class. The rest of us were just warm bodies taking up space — not that the TA tried, as far as I could tell, to make us feel that way, but it happened none the less.

I entirely loathe office hours, and not because of the individual teachers or anything like that. In all my time as a college student, I think I’ve used this opportunity to better my education twice — once in a fantastically awesome class on French Fairytales, and most recently, to understand close reading better for English literature written post-1800.

The first was only over some minute details of the class I wasn’t understanding, and the second was because I hadn’t taken an English course in an exceptionally long time.

Both visits were helpful, painless and furthered my quest for a degree, but I still dread office hours like the plague. There was a philosophy course where I should have used the TAs availability, but early in the quarter, I resigned myself that the only thing I’d take away would be excellent cursive if I took my useless notes exclusively in script. Sure enough, I failed my first class, but with exceptional penmanship.

This quarter, though, I had a sort of revelation when one of my quiz sections met for the first time: TAs must get pretty lonely and bored. Imagine being forced to block out a couple of hours a week to just sit in an office, Parnasus, the Hub Atrium or the Burke Café waiting for a clueless student to wander in and ask about things they don’t get.

I suspect that a lot of students feel as I do about office hours — they are for proactive learners, and I feel like that is a dying race. But the way this certain TA talked up her office availability, I realized that it must be nice for them to have students visit.

How else would a TA have any idea whether or not anyone cares or pays attention? This quarter, I have resolved to visit my TA and professors whenever I have any vague question. It is my hope that this will be a mutually beneficial use of time; it will show that I really do care about my classes, hopefully improve my actual education, and reinforce to the instructors that they really are worthwhile and appreciated.

I’m developing questions I may need to ask in office hours — a few of the ones bouncing around so far include: “Why was Heathcliff such a d*ck to everyone?” “How did Mira Nair turn Vanity Fair into such a short movie when the novel is that thick?” and “Would Charlotte Brontë have written Jane Eyre if Prozac had been around in the early Victorian?”

These are all important questions. I want to get the most out of my education and show my instructors that I appreciate their time, experience and wisdom. Office hours seem like an untapped resource to make all of these things come true — I can’t believe I didn’t see it earlier.

Reach columnist Matthew Jackson at opinion@dailyuw.com.