Going to lectures

[raven]

I may, possibly, have misjudged American Girl. When you get her talking, she's actually quite nice. And I wanted to know if she had any more questions, or if I could help her with anything else, and she said yes, she had a question. Go ahead, I said.

"Tell me," she said, "do you people ever go to lectures?"

"Um," I said. "That depends."

The thing is, I know what it depends on for me - I would go to my compulsory ones if I had any, I go to the good ones (c.f. Morison and Pooley), and the later the lecture is in the day, generally the more likely I am to go to it. But I am curious, and procrastinating, and therefore spamming.



[Poll #668385]

Comments

[snowballjane.livejournal.com]

I know this makes me a sad, sad person but I went to quite a few lectures that weren't for my own courses (all Prof. Watson's modernism ones, because he was unmissably brilliant) and some in entirely other subjects (archaeology, which was my roommate's subject), just for fun.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Even if I hadn't been a PPEist, I'd have still gone to Morison and Pooley's General Philoshopy lectures, because they were that good. And I wanted to go to Latin lectures last term, but they wouldn't let me! So, yeah, I understand that. Other people's lectures sound so much more interesting anyway!

[kuteki.livejournal.com]

I do go to most...only not the two this morning, or the econ ones with that guy whose voice makes me want to shoot myself. But I can actually see inside South School from my landing and feel terribly guilty if I don't go, unless I am sleeping, or writing a last minute essay... :D

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

That guy makes us all want to shoot ourselves. Ohgod he's so awful, I can never understand a single word he's saying.

You can see inside Schools! That amuses me more than it should.

[kuteki.livejournal.com]

Heh, it has its advantages, like I see if people are there and can leave my room on the hour without being late!

[biascut.livejournal.com]

I asked for permission to attend a seminar course, with all the reading, that I wasn't getting credit for because it was two of our fantastically brilliant professors and I really wanted to know about the Philosophical Aesthetic and Literary Theory. They were the only seminars I took really detailed notes for, as well. Though I'm still hopeless at any kind of philosophical discussion.

I didn't miss any seminars, but I considered lectures optional. I also counted a 9.15 lecture "attended" if I was wearing a fleece over pyjamas, sat at the back and went straight to sleep without even getting a pen and paper out. This is possibly not the sort of attendance that the university was shooting for.

Are you worried about the proposed attendance contracts, Iona?

[hathy-col.livejournal.com]

I really enjoy lectures. People sit and talk at me for an hour and I sit an absorb knowledge. It makes my life a happy place, and I have quite nice lectures about stuff I'm fascinated with.

Although 10am medieval history? Oh, that is painful. I do it because I love the subject.

They're not the be all and end all. A lot of what I do is the lectures, because the reading doesn't always make sense unless someone sensibly takes you through the basic timelines and the ideas. I think it's a history thing, though, because I feel awful when I skip a lecture. I have missed, um, five. Mostly through missing a train on a Sunday so mising my Monday morning, or on one memorable occasion waking up on Thursday at midday and flailing.

I hated Spanish and had no qualms missing it.

Russian I have no choice for, though, because I get no other tutorials so will have to go. Oh, yay.

It's odd, but you get away with not going to lectures so much more than we do. Might be a university thing.

[robette-wild.livejournal.com]

:D I said I attended most of mine... I think this averages out: I missed about two thirds of last term's lectures but I've been to every single one this term (apart from the ones we were told not to go to, for obvious reasons). And I feel I'm justifiably proud of myself for that, since we had eight 9am lectures in the first two weeks. :O (Honestly, if we'd wanted that, we'd all have done chemistry.)

Next year I want to go to these Morison and Pooley lectures, just to see what it's all about.

I mean, what they're all about, as well as the whole 'what's-it-all-about' philosophy angle.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Wow. That's dedication. *g* In theory, I approve of classes rather than lectures for philosophy, as you do need to discuss things, but ours aren't particularly great.

Oh, ditto for my ten am lectures. I'm inviarably unconscious after twenty minutes. It's quite embarrassing.

I am a little. I have a general mistrust of decrees by the "University" (I've been here six months and I've never yet seen or heard that nebulous entity) and it sounds somewhat silly, to be honest. Contracts making us go to lectures that are on top of a very heavy private study workload, that are only occasionally relevant, and that very rarely happen at the same time as the tutorials on the subject? I'm not sure I understand the benefits of it. Also, with 300 PPEists running around the place, I wonder how exactly they're going to enforce it.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Your lectures sound more interesting than mine, and also because you're not joint honours so there is less stuff that you're not interested in even in your own degree subject. Does that makse sense? I basically hate a third of everything I do because of economics

Oh, god. I have missed so many more than five, which makes me wonder if your lectures are just better than mine, because they do help you understand things and mine are a bit hit and miss in that respect.

It might be a university thing, and it might be something to do with the 300 PPEists round and about. With so many, I guess no-one notices if there's people missing, plus each college does do things in a different orde so lectures are relevant for different people.

[loneraven.livejournal.com]

Heee. Nine am lectures! That's awful! I seem to remember you sleeping through midday ones last term! *g*

You must go to them, for both angles. :) They are LOVE in so many different ways.

[hathy-col.livejournal.com]

Mine are admittingly fab depending on the lecturer, but they are generally useful. Your economics was my Spanish, although god knows what Russian will be like. Will let you know in an hour or so...

And I think your Morison and Pooley are a little bit like Dr Sexy in mediaeval history. People bring their friends to prove that mediaeval history, wanky spelling and all, is still cool. He is distressingly attractive and this is agreed by all, especially those who fight for the front seats. Obviously, I keep my cool and sit in the middle row which is the first one to raise up so actually I get a better perving seat. I kept on being distracted in my exam because he walked past, and I am a source of envy because he advised me. It's also, basically, a good idea to go to Dr Pettegree for modern history ("because he quotes from the book and therefore reduces reading") and everyone gos to Dr McDougalls lectures because she's the coolest person in Christendom. It all depends, basically.

There are something stupid like 350 modern historians alone. I know people who have managed to scive a semester of lectures, but they get worse marks. Still pass, mind, but...

Please remember, in regards to skipping lectures, I structure my own degree. Subject bores me, then bollocks to it and off I merrily skip into the sunset. With 'history' I have about eight modules to chose from a year (Ancient, mediaeval, modern and Scottish) so it's rally flexible. Which helps with turning up. A lot.

[the-acrobat.livejournal.com]

Lectures.
When I was an undergraduate, I had a policy that I could miss one lecture per class per week. So if we had lectures 3 times a week, I had to go to 2.
Usually when I did go, I sat at the back and wrote M*A*S*H fanfiction or slept.
I didn't make myself very popular.
I dropped any course that required me to be on campus before 10:00 a.m. unless it was essential in order to graduate.
When I was an undergraduate, my seminar policy was that I could miss one per term. And that included sick days. Seminars might be the only reason I didn't drop out of university and become a career barista or something.
Now I always go to class, and I almost always go to my students' lectures (although I'm sometimes late), which is painful. I keep several Sudokus in my notebook which prevent me from dying of boredom, but allow me to know enough about what was said in lecture that I know what my students - who never do the readings, those jerks - will know about in tutorial on Friday so I know what to talk about. When I get bored of Sudoku and it gets too easy, I'll probably teach myself to do cryptic crosswords or something.

[ladyfalcon.livejournal.com]

At the two colleges I've attended, there's always been some sort of policy, either put in place by the professors or the school itself, that after a certain number of missed lectures, you begin to get points off on your final class grade. Where I am now, the only leeway you have is that sometimes you can get a lenient professor who gives you ten misses or something, but of course those then become the professors who won't accept 'I had my appendix out' as an excuse for why you missed that 11th day.

In fact, at the orientations I went to, the single biggest thing they stressed about what you should do when you get to college is GO TO CLASS. At the university I attended particularly, they made a big deal of the fact that five lectures at three hours a week each plus the "magic number" of studying hours (it's reccommended in every book that you read on college that you spend three hours out-of-class studying for every one hour in-class), that that time only worked out to be forty hours a week, which is the same as a full-time job. So they encouraged looking at college as your job, and making class-going and studying your major priority.

And I have to say, at the university, I didn't go to class, and while I didn't actually fail out I had straight C's and a few D's, and my parents refused to pay for any more, which is the story of How I Ended Up in Junior College. Where I now go to class every. single. time. (although I skipped one yesterday just because).

[casirafics.livejournal.com]

In my entire career at zee lovely University of Gigantitude, I intentionally ditched class a grand total of... once. And that was when I'd had a meeting with the teacher earlier in the day anyway, so I preemptively got the day's material from her then.

I am sometimes too much of a goody-two-shoes for my own good. ;)

(Then again, I did get into the most prestigious honor society in the nation, so I suppose it all works out....)

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

One time I only went to 7 out of a possible 35 lectures. That may be why I have a gap that contains a wee bit of Martin Luther but otherwise paints history as something of a blank between Columbus and George III. "European Wars of Religion"? What European Wars of Religion?

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

10 in Upper College Hall? That'd be why I have very little clue about the Carolingians.

[that_mireille]

I went to lectures... sometimes. When I was studying English, I had a sociology course where I went the first day, and then for exams. So maybe five times out of thirty.

When I was doing computer science, I always went to one professor's classes (and when I say "always," I mean "usually") because I liked them, but others, I would miss pretty often.

I do not count the spring of 2005 when I was not allowed to stand up for more than five minutes at a time and therefore went to nothing.

I did very well in both degrees, for the record...

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

OMG Do you still get Bentley doing the Liberals etc? Bentley is as gods, yo. And most people's money says he's the one that's the son of a Lord.

[robette-wild.livejournal.com]

what, me, sleep through midday lectures? well, er, actually, yes. XD

next year i am going to befriend the first year ppeists, and, my own timetable permitting, follow them to their lectures. (except what you refer to as 'maths for stupid people', which, although very applicable to me, is not something i will voluntarily put myself through.)

o.o i have to stop using so many commas.

[potatofiend.livejournal.com]

I have been to exactly two lectures this term, and one of them was this week's Morison and Pooley. And I'm an English student.

...I am a bad person.

[gamesiplay.livejournal.com]

I'm a bad person. Last semester I discovered the wonder that is skipping classes in favor of sleep, and since then, I've had a really hard time dragging myself out of bed at all. Ever. For anything. Lucky for me, most of my classes have some kind of limit on absences, after which you're penalized, so I'm forced to go to a lot. (Although I still managed to miss about a third of all my art history classes last semester. The problem is that I have yet to see any consequences--grades or otherwise--for skipping, so I have little incentive to wake up anymore.)

[hathy-col.livejournal.com]

Liberals etc that have been moved to second year - MO1005/Mo1006 are all early modern now because they swapped over the order they did stuff and I am but a wee fresher so I have to wait until next year for this. Right now I am, um, fangirling Pettegree which I'm told makes me a Bad and Wrong Person. Oh well.

I will keep an eye out for next year, though.

[hathy-col.livejournal.com]

School III now, but still 10am. It is not of the fun.

[kismeteve.livejournal.com]

Despite the fact that my classes are mind-numbingly boring, I have to go to all of them since my university has an attendance policy. Three absences and your grade gets cut. Some professors can actually fail you if you have three absences. I can kind of get away with skipping my lingusitics and US history lectures if I sign in and then sneak out the back, but I'm waiting until the weather gets nicer to do so.