College student SC in class!

[FenigDurak]

Minor thread jack:

I see this EVERYDAY as I go to a private Uni in Colorado (named after it's Capitol City if you care to guess) that is known for it's Business School and that Condi Rice is it's most notable alum (Michelle Kwan is currently a student here because we have an Olympic size ice rink).

I've listened in (inadvertantly mind you) on a girl complaining she lost her Scholarship to Study Abroad because of being caught on campus drunk (she was 19 at the time) and in the same breath went on to talk about how the Halloween party she went to only had beer, no hard liquor and she can't be lowered to drinking beer.

I've been told, to my face upon suggesting that we just suck it up and deal with the Music Majors during the Musical Production (I'm a theatre major) because it's our chosen profession and you'll find that in EVERY JOB you'll EVER HAVE, "I don't pay $40K a year to be told to deal with it." Seriously?! I can guarantee that kid doesn't pay that much, but rather scholarships and his parents do. Blerg.

On the other hand, we do have such Core classes as "Harry Potter and Esotericism" and "The Birth of Rock & Roll" so I guess I can't complain too much.
</ thread jack>

[Bandit]

In his defense, I took a statistics class in college taught by a very intelligent professor who actually did freelance statistician work in the private sector. The problem was, he talked like Ben Stien on downers. It was a real fight at times to stay awake in his class, just because of his voice and somewhat dry-at-times material combined to cause the brain to want to shut down.

Are you sure you weren't in my datacomm class in college?

For two hours, twice a week, in the summer in a portable, we got to listen to a prof read the textbook at us in a monotone that would make Ben Stein cry.

We counted the holes in the ceiling tiles, played D&D, did the slow-mo headbanging thing (love the visual BTW) and the coffee shop always knew when we had the break.

That was the class I forgot about the mid-term until the day I wrote it, wrote the major project 2 hours before presenting it after dicking around for a month with Harvard Graphics (Early DOS version of a PowerPoint-type package) for the big show, and still pulled off an A.

The irony is that I have made a good living out of communications. Wonder what it would have been like if I had paid attention in the class?

B

[Trayol]

I just had my own classmate SC yesterday. During my History of Ancient Rome in the middle of taking notes, I thought I ad smelled rum coming from somewhere. I first dismissed it as my crazy acting up until I told my friend who sat a few rows behind me and he said the guy next to him stunk of hard liquor.

Why come to class stinking drunk or hungover and unbathed? It's not like the class is boring. The class is challenging, but everyone loves the professor. There was even a waiting list to get into the class.

[Gerrinson]

Had one guy sleeping in class tonight. Seriously, if you're tired enough to sleep through class why bother coming in?

Actually, I did this in all of my Accounting classes. And Principles of Management.

They were evening courses. I was working two jobs and taking a full course load, too. Sleeping and eating were nearly things of fantasy, to me. I had to show up for classes or be dropped due to excessive absences. For evening classes, if you miss more than one session, they would drop you. So, I'd show up, prep myself for 'learning by osmosis'* and zonk out. I couldn't do it now, even if I wanted to, but I was a master in my early 20's. Now, I wouldn't overload myself so much with work and school, plan time enough for sleep, and just be awake and alert for everything.

I felt kind of bad about it, as might the sleeping guy in your class, but I had to show up and I did get straight A's in all of those classes. The only person to score higher than me was a woman who was taking only one class at a time and spent 20 hours per week studying and doing homework for the one class. She got a 95 for each class, I got a 94 (95 was the highest possible score.)

*Learning by osmosis: Mostly sleeping through class but being aware enough that you dream about the material being presented. And, when the teacher asks you a question, you immediately sit up, rattle off the correct answer, and then zonk out again.

[Yfandes]

Uh, I'm guessing that she used the data set from Google because the answers were included

[protege]

That is hilarious to me.

Me too!

Seriously though, my Stats prof was like Ben Stein on downers. He'd read from the book, and just bore the hell out of us. It wouldn't have been so bad if the class was only an hour or so, but two? Yawn. Same guy chewed out my bank manager (when I was interning there) because the ATM was usually shut down around noon for maintenance. That wasn't it though--he supposed got busted for assaulting a student, who dared to ask questions in class

Then there was the "computers in business" class I had to take. It was a required class, but nobody really wanted to take it. Even if the prof tried to liven it up. Still, it was pretty boring--Excel and Access, mostly. Well, that was when we weren't playing Quake (gotta love the LAN!), surfing the web, napping, etc. I did all of that, yet still got an A

[lupo pazzesco]

I tend to space out in my social psych class, but that's partly because right now the material is all review from previous classes. I enjoy listening to the prof speak, he's got a great voice and a lovely accent.


In stats today, we turned in another homework set, and the last 10 minutes in class was the TA explaining common notes and problems from the last couple he graded. One thing he kept emphasizing was pay attention to where you're supposed to get the data!

I didn't fall out of my chair laughing, but I did duck my head and grin like a maniac. I'm guessing the ditz tried to rip him a new one, too, since apparently he does the bulk of the grading (straight up data and calculation problems. The interpretive problems, i.e., "tell me what you see in the data and why" are the purview of the prof.)

I didn't do to well on the last homework set. Here's hoping I do better on the one I turned in today.

[wagegoth]

Ever see a whole room of college students when their heads are sloooowly nodding foreward, then snapping up as they jolt back awake? Looks like slow-motion headbanging.

One of the first college courses I ever took was accounting. My mom pushed me into it. The instructor was an accountant, he sounded like a television commercial stereotype of an accountant, and he lectured the entire 90 minutes of the class. That was the last accounting class I ever took.

[Buglady]

In the Intro Psych class I took a couple of years ago to test the waters (I then came back to do a full Psych degree), I was the *only* person in the class who ever asked questions or responded when the instructor asked the class questions (I'd wait until it was clear nobody else was going to, it's not like I was jumping out of my seat and shouting over people!). The fellow next to me turned to me after the first midterm and said ina snarky tone, "you're kind of a keener, aren't you?" - as if I was supposed to apologise or something.

I just looked at him and said yes, I probably am, what of it? I paid $500 tuition for this one course, I am damn well going to pay attention to it!

He went and sat somewhere else. I think in retrospect he was annoyed because he had tried to cheat off my midterm test paper and couldn't because I write very small...

[protege]

Ugh. Former co-irker J was one of those. No, he wouldn't ask questions...rather he had a problem with those who asked "stupid" questions. Never mind that everyone else in the class paid the same to take it, he actually had a problem with that. Sorry, but if I'm coughing up the green to attend school, fuck you. I'll ask as many questions as I damn well please

[Jay 2K Winger]

Didn't see so much of this in my college experiences (admittedly in part because during my disastrous ONE semester at UMD, I didn't go to class. No, I don't know why I failed! ), but I saw it in some of my high school classes.

My first class of the morning for my last two years of high school was Spanish, with Sra. Walsh-- or, as she preferred to be called, "La Bruja." ("The Witch.") You nodded off in her class, she'd pick up one of the many noise-making toys she had in her room, walk over to you, put it next to your head, and turn it on. Rarely did anyone fall asleep TWICE in her classes.

Still, there was someone in my AP Senior Session class (AP English + AP US Government) who was notorious for dozing off in class. We humored him, since he still got the work done, and seemed to be picking up the material. (Learning by osmosis, right?) His name was Osama (this was a couple years before 9/11, so the name didn't yet have the major negative connotations to it), and he would often wake up, give a humorous (and relevant!) comment to the discussion, and get a smiling "Osama, go back to sleep," from the teacher.

It ended up becoming the default response whenever someone else would make a snarky remark to something. "David, go back to sleep." "Melissa, go back to sleep." "Jay2K, go back to sleep."

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

My most memorable college professor was my Human Environmental Biology teacher.

Where some people use the word "like" as a filler word, he used the word "class."

"So class, today, class, we're going to discuss, class, various, class, forms of generating electricity such as, class, nuclear, solar, class, hydroelectric, wind, geothermal, class. Class, please turn to page 54, class, in your textbooks, class. Class, class, class..." and so forth.

Me and the guy sitting in front of me would keep track of the number of times our professor said class, and then calculate the Class Per Minute (CPM). We would then share this information with out classmates. "He was at 2.67 CPMs, down from 2.89 last lecture."

That was a really fun class though. Labs usually consisted of field trips to places like a nuclear power plant, a fish hatchery, or just driving around the countryside taking note of certain geological features. I could bring all the food and drink on the bus as I wanted, and my portable CD player too.

[SG15Z]

Man I feel sorry for that prof. I guess some people are just born that way...

[lupo pazzesco]

Man I feel sorry for that prof. I guess some people are just born that way...

Or raised that way...

Or dropped on their head repeatedly as a child...

Or...well...you get the idea...

[ditchdj]

No, they were just way too overcoddled as kids and told by their parents that they were very special and important and decided to fight all their battles for them whenever they didnt get their own way. They got away with it at softball games where everyone gets a trophy and everyone's a "winner" just for participating. They got away with it at school where they bitched out the teacher and the principal when they DARED give their special child a C. They got away with it when their kid didn't get the "right dorm" in college too. But now those same "wonderful, special kids" are finding themselves locked out of the job market, especially with the recession in full swing. And I don't doubt it. Hell I'll work for the same pay and I won't bitch about it. I don't mind working my way up the ladder. I got a family to support and bills to pay. And when it comes to that (I know some aren't gonna like hearing this), I really don't care if one of those self-centered, "wonderful children" get their feelings hurt.