Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Conversation >

Attending Lectures -- Give Me Reasons

Cliff and Ferry Street

03:14 / 06.11.02

Because I'm not. I don't even live anywhere near my alma mater. There's a decent academic library here, in addition to a decent public one. I have access to all lecture materials thanks to the combined forces of friends with laptops and the ever-lovable internet. I go when there's a test or a seminar, and when I'm asked to speak in a lecture, and when I need something I can only get from the Uni library. Is there anything I'm missing, any reason why I shouldn't be doing this? Why are more people not doing this?

I just don't like the bloody town where my Uni is located. I despise it with a passion. Is there any viable reason why I should get over myself and move there, and go to lectures every day, and be a normal student? Anything?

Because sometimes it seems too good, the way it is. Self-doubt is a terrible thing.

03:31 / 06.11.02

To make the self-doubting go away. Next!

The Return Of Rothkoid

03:38 / 06.11.02

Check the fine print: there may be a compulsory attendance statistic that you have to fulfil in order to pass...

Cliff and Ferry Street

03:51 / 06.11.02

To make the self-doubting go away.

Not a viable reason. I'm far too punk rock to care about my mental well-being for its own sake.

Check the fine print

Done. No compulsory attendance, save the seminars I'm already making sure to attend.

03:53 / 06.11.02

Fine.
Go because whine-wondering whether to go or not isn't attractive. Go and be pretty.

Cliff and Ferry Street

04:05 / 06.11.02

Sorry, am I boring you?

Because that would be just terrible, wouldn't it.

My my.

04:20 / 06.11.02

It isn't that, don't you want to be gorgeous?

Cliff and Ferry Street

05:36 / 06.11.02

But I'm a beautiful bisexual model. I think you're insane to suggest I should be any more gorgeous (or, indeed, more modest) than I already am.

Still no viable reasons anywhere in sight.

08:03 / 06.11.02

Well - they can occasionally shed new light on a subject, or the lecturer might have some new research, or they might make you think about something in a different way.

Having said that, it does depend what level you're at and who your lecturer is. I haven't been to a lecture all term - why would I sit in a draughty room listening to Dr X giving the same lecture on Walpole that he gives every single year? Especially when I can read his book instead. I do go to seminars and classes though - you get a much fresher view of work at those, and it's often work in progress. And then you can pull the speaker to pieces afterwards.

It can be worthwhile to go just to be seen as well - depends what you want to do with your degree, of course.

Cliff and Ferry Street

09:10 / 06.11.02

Well - they can occasionally shed new light on a subject, or the lecturer might have some new research

That's where the friends who take laptops into lecture come in, though. Type it up, upload it soon after, and there you go -- instant information trafficking. I think it's beautiful.

I'm only in my first year, that's why I have the nerve to doubt myself on things like this at all.

10:38 / 06.11.02

You are missing out on a good part of the campus social life, after-lecture drinks, etc. This is where you make connections that will help you after you graduate.

You are relying on other people's notes. They are subjective and may even be erroneous.

And what are you doing to help your friends who type them up for you? Doesn't sound very fair.

10:41 / 06.11.02

Lectures strike me as a fantastically bad idea. Give me your notes - don't just read them to me! Put them on the web, mail them out, be flexible! I have survived some truly horrific lectures in my time - the Monday 9 o'clock, the 3-bastid-hour one that started at 8 (still dark!) o'clock when I studied in France, the ones where lecturers literally read from their notes or book.

You do get a chance to ask questions at the end, get all topical updates (depends on your subject), and there is the whole social side, chatting to people from your course and stuff. Still, I much prefer the whole distance learning approach. They mail you the work, give you optional tutorials and you work at your own pace.

12:21 / 06.11.02

Actually, the only legitimate defence of going to lectures I can think of is that;

a)they give me the illusion that I'm actually doing something useful when really I'm just slumped in a seat for an hour absorbing a miniscule amount of information that could be gained from about 10 minutes reading.

and

b)without them I'm literally be slouching about the house all day eating peanut butter straight from the jar like a scurvy slob bastard.

Plus, if you really are a beautiful bisexual model, surely lectures would be a great excuse for you to put on your hippest threads and stroll in casually and sit at the back and just 'hang' in a calculatedly cool disinterested manner, slightly unnerving the lecturer and making all the other students eye you enviously and think "ooh, I wish I could be as cool as hir"..

The Natural Way

13:03 / 06.11.02

Sometimes structure aids yer larnin'.

Tryphena Absent

13:45 / 06.11.02

Erm well I can't really talk since I missed all of last weeks lectures and seminars because I didn't want to go but lectures are fun... really. You can sit and laugh at the funny people who you don't like that sit at the front of the room. You can laugh at the funny person talking at the front of the room. Plus you don't have to do quite as much revision at the end of the year so you get to have more fun then. Notes do not make up for all that boring speech that rests somewhere in your unconscious mind.

14:14 / 06.11.02

Yes, please, just go! If you stay in your (I'm guessing) home town, you're missing out. You will find you will grow apart from some of your old buddies (trust me on this), and if you stay away from campus you won't be meeting any new ones.

There was a guy on my course who lived 30 miles away and so couldn't always make it in to class. Do you know, I can't even remember his name.

15:17 / 06.11.02

I think this discussion is partly subject dependent, but I seem to remember as an undergrad making a point of missing most lectures. I didn't even get notes. I thought my lectures were often badly delivered and since they were always before noon I usually didn't feel sufficiently awake. Also, as noted, they can be a way to convince yourself that you've done something when you've just gone to sleep.

But from the other side of the fence, I would recommend going. If there is any doubt in your mind, you should go. Its an easy way to get spoon fed information by someone who will emphasise the bits they like and (at least in the UK) set an exam based on that. Osmosis really does have an effect, if only a small one.

Murray Hamhandler

15:31 / 06.11.02

I attend classes regularly if for no other reason than that, if I miss a lecture here and there, I have a tendency to miss more than just a lecture here and there. Up to and including missing a test here and there. Or missing the second half of a semester's worth of classes here and there. Trust me. It happened. In my first year. Bevare, und take care.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

16:22 / 06.11.02

C&FS, could you remind us what subject you are studying? Some subjects lend themselves better to {cough} distance learning than others.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

16:41 / 06.11.02

Showing your face is often a good thing. If you hit a snag and need more time or want some help with a piece of coursework, the staff will generally be more helpful to someone who's actually attended some of their lectures.

18:32 / 06.11.02

I go to lectures because I usually get more out of it than if I just copied some other person's notes and came in every once in awhile to take the test or do a presentation. There's also the fact that I'm paying a big bunch of money so I'm going to get my money's worth. Copying some other person's notes is all well and good, but by going you might pick up on something they may have missed.

19:06 / 06.11.02

I hate attending lectures, especially when I can get the information online, so I know where you're coming from. I hardly ever attended my History of Crime class because it was taught by a stuffy lawyer, but one day I decided to go, and lo and behold, that very night I was asked on a date from one of the other students in that class. I all ready have a boyfriend, but that's not the point. You can meet some pretty cool people, or, failing that, meet sucky people who can introduce you to cool people.
And as Trijhaos said, you're paying money to go to those lectures. Might as well make use of them.

20:06 / 06.11.02

You have to balance things up. Lectures are often good to meet people on your course. Lectures are a good way to let knowledge seep in when you're not quite awake.

I'm really bad at taking notes in lectures, but to be honest, come exam time, I never use my lecture notes. Also: you might make better use of an hour in a book, rather than an hour being told what the book says - not every minute in that hour is often relevant.

I quite like lectures, because occasionally there'll be one thing that points me in the right direction for the week's work, or some good quotations. In general, I prefer lectures on stuff I'd never normally do - authors I'd never normally read, or books I'd never get around to, because the tangential stuff often comes in hand. The stuff that was on what I did last week - ugh, tedious.

Pinch of salt. If you're enjoying a lecture course, keep going. If it's crap, don't go because you think you have to (unless you have compulsory attendance). Make your own choices. Don't miss stuff like classes and seminars, which are often very useful, and discussion's often more helpful than listening.

Cliff and Ferry Street

23:13 / 06.11.02

C&FS, could you remind us what subject you are studying?

Certainly. It's semiotics and theory of culture. Because that's just the kind of a reasonable and practical person I am. Ha ha. Honestly, I'm only in it because I love it. I am doing other things to have some hope of an income in the future. It's fine, all part of the master plan and so on.

The subject is actually the only reason I'm in that particular uni, despite my hatred of all things Tartu (the place it's at). Else I'd be in Germany, becoming an engineer or something. But never mind that.

I think it lends itself quite well to my style of studying, since soaking in the information given in lectures is just a tiny, minuscule part of the larnin' I'm meant to be doing.

you're paying money to go to those lectures

No, I'm getting a free ride. All the more reason to be proper, obviously. But I wonder, if I'm getting the results, does it really matter whether I attend lectures or not?

I am enjoying the lectures of exactly one course I'm taking this semester -- everything else is pretty much introductory stuff, or else has boring lecturers. So I try to go every Tuesday, just to sit in that one. It doesn't always work out that way, but hey, I try.

Thanks everyone for your insight. You are all fabulous.

XXII:X:II = XXX

17:00 / 07.11.02

And another advantage to usually going to class is that when you actually need to be somewhere else when it's happening, people will actively wonder where you were, and may even make first contact socially with that as the pretext.

Keep us updated on this as a personal sociological experiment.

17:56 / 07.11.02

When I was at Uni I fucking hated lectures - unless the lecturer was really interesting and added something new than the book did. Basically my attendance rule of thumb was, if the lecturer was telling us things that weren't in the books and would be on tests and papers, I'd go. If the lecturer was telling us things were also in the book, but put a really interesting spin on things or was a good speaker and I was really interested in the subject itself, I would also go.

If, however, the lecturer was boring as all get out and spoke in a monotone a la the teacher in Ferris Beuller, even if what he was saying would be needed for tests and papers, I'd often try to go, or plan on going, but generally just borrow the notes from a more diligent friend. And if the teacher was boring and everything they were saying was in the book(s), no fucking way would I go.

I'm not necessarily recommending this course of action, as it's not most academically ambitious. That said, I got an "A" in at least one class having never attended the lectures. (To be fair I also failed a class this same way, but I took it second grade option, attended all the lectures the following term and got an A next time).

I guess what I'm saying is, do as I say, not as I do.

wembley can change in 28 days

08:09 / 08.11.02

Skipped some, attended some, it really depends on the lecturer. Now that I'm out of undergraduate hell, it occurs to me that one of the nicest things about lectures was simply the human contact, particularly that of people who share the same ideas. Most lecture halls are full of students who just want to cut each other down lest they be cut down themselves and suffer another blow to that porcelain ego, but when you're not there, you might really miss having people around you to discuss what you know and love. This includes profs - depending on your subject, you can actually get to know them, hang out, get drunk, and (gasp) learn something. It doesn't really matter how innovative and smart you think you are; most profs know a lot more about your subject than you do, and it's often worth listening to them. I believe it's only partly about the information - you have to be able to deal with that information in a human context as well.

Our Lady of The Two Towers

14:47 / 08.11.02

Cliff and Ferry Street C&FS, could you remind us what subject you are studying?
Certainly. It's semiotics and theory of culture.

Well, you're doing a wanky subject so you might as well stay in bed

Cliff and Ferry Street

13:08 / 10.11.02

I believe it's only partly about the information - you have to be able to deal with that information in a human context as well.

Can't argue with that. Great point.

In the spirit of logging this as a personal sociological experiment as suggested above, I'll have you all know that I've suffered the first negative consequences of keeping myself out of the loop. Missed an excellent night of bonding with a couple of Really Clever People, apparently. Ah well. Better timing next week.