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Article: Why don't university students attend lectures?

Poll

Do you attend your lectures?

Following on from this thread about students who don't go to lectures, we wrote this article, asking: Why don't university students go to lectures. What's your opinion?
(edited 9 years ago)

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Lecture slides are always uploaded to the likes of BlackBoard or Moodle, so they don't see the point. That, or they are cramming their assessments at the last minute.

Just had that today, actually...
Original post by Puddles the Monkey
Following on from this thread about students who don't go to lectures, we wrote this article, asking: Why don't university students go to lectures. What's your opinion?


I think also students abusing the new found freedom they have- if they know no one will punish them they might not bother. And some lectures I've had haven't been helpful, lecturers just read off the powerpoints which are put online and they don't tell you anything you can put in your essay, you have to research that yourself anyway (or even if they do, you still need to find it from a more appropriate source such as a book or journal as its bad practice to reference a lecture)
Original post by jelly1000
I think also students abusing the new found freedom they have- if they know no one will punish them they might not bother. And some lectures I've had haven't been helpful, lecturers just read off the powerpoints which are put online and they don't tell you anything you can put in your essay, you have to research that yourself anyway (or even if they do, you still need to find it from a more appropriate source such as a book or journal as its bad practice to reference a lecture)


This especially the 'reading off the slides' part.

I came to uni wishing to be guided by intellectual gurus through the sea of knowledge, not watching a parrot squawk

Hence my favourite lecturers were the interactive ones!
I'm bumping this to add a poll in the OP :yay:
I attend all of them because I'm paying for it and the powerpoint slides aren't that great, the lecture is more informative lol
Reply 7
Always. I actually just attend everything.

I had a PAL (peer-assisted learning) session just now, which immediately followed a lecture in the theatre just down the hall, and still (out of a group of maybe a dozen students) there were just two of us. I think some of the others have the attitude that they'll go to PAL if they're stuck with something, but that isn't really the point!
lol just missed a lecture right now

PG student as well
Reply 9
You can play some cracking games during lectures though:
1). When girls come into the lecture room, guess how many penises each one of them has taken in the past week. Always fun to have a guess.
2). When the guv'nor says "We'll take a quick break here", see how many cigars you can smoke outside before feeling sick, or, see how long you make one last. Nothing better than a bit of smoke up the lung.
3). 'Coffee cup knock off'. You know those tarts that always take in coffee and always leave the cup behind? Sit at the back, and throw sweets at the cups to see who can knock the most off. Fills time when everyone is rushing to get through the doors at the end.
4). The old 'can you pick up my pen, please' gag. To punish the infidels that keep dropping their pens on the row in front, kick the pen further down. The next time somebody asks me to pick up their pen, it's getting introduced up their jacksy.

#onlyfoolstakenotes
You don't need to go to most of them, you can just self learn the stuff at a later time.
They are preoccupied by so many social things.. ultimately I think it's just immaturity.. I feel sorry for lecturers and other students who work hard (like me) as it's hard to do group sessions when hardly anyone turns up
hi, i'm skipping right now
i skipped because lecture is ****ing useless and pointless, ah, and also big waste of time
i attend all the seminar tho because i actually talk and discussing with people there and not just become listening-robot
It's taken me a while to really appreciate how much of a skill presenting is. Some of these lecturers are obviously very intelligent but cannot depend only on the material to engage a lecture hall.
how different it would be in China.

just saying.
Original post by beruangmacan
hi, i'm skipping right now
i skipped because lecture is ****ing useless and pointless, ah, and also big waste of time
i attend all the seminar tho because i actually talk and discussing with people there and not just become listening-robot


You shouldn't be a listening robot in lectures :eek3: Make sure you're taking notes actively and writing down any ideas or arguments you have about what's being presented in the lecture. It will be super helpful when you get to writing essays.
Original post by Puddles the Monkey
You shouldn't be a listening robot in lectures :eek3: Make sure you're taking notes actively and writing down any ideas or arguments you have about what's being presented in the lecture. It will be super helpful when you get to writing essays.


most lecturers are a parrot, reading lectures exactly as the power point slide
writing notes is basically useless as you can do it at home while reading the power point anyway

i have 6 subjects right now this semester, and only 2 actually matters for me, marketing (only seminar) and financial accounting. the rest are just complete garbage like academic&career, basic microeconomics, garbage sociology and basic math...

the only lecture that i never skip is the financial accounting subject because the lecturer is so fun to listen to, the others subject are parrot, boring old man or just easy pointless subject. maybe because i'm still first year

i find this universities' lecture-teaching-system is extremely useless compared to the classroom-at-school or basically a seminar where i can engage and getting involve with discussion, teacher and actually making acquaintances and friends there
My first year lectures were good, however second year all they have done is copied from the core text book.
In 1st year I attended them all. Second year much less so and by 3rd year I was attending the minimum amount in order not to be dragged before a progress panel.

Personally, I went to uni to learn more about a subject that fascinated me but found myself just studying for exams and having no time to learn for the sake of learning. I felt very pressured to learn quickly and get 60%+. I favored passing my exams and coursework and getting a 2.1 over absorbing the content of each and every lecture (in reality, that's impossible).
In 2nd/3rd year I chose carefully which lectures/seminars to attend based on how much I judged them to be beneficial to me. Most of them were accessible online and it was quicker to skim read online notes and glean only the most important info from them than to sit through an hour lecture plus travel time there and back. I could get more done in an hour at my desk in the library than in the hour in most lectures.

I got my 2.1 and wouldn't have done it any differently, however, for my next degree I'll be attending every lecture/seminar because I actually want to learn and not just pass the exams. I lost interest in my first degree and I was just doing it for the piece of paper. I'm actually interested in my 2nd degree and want a career from it and I'd like to be knowledgeable at work since I'll be treating patients.

So yeah, for me it was a totally practical thing - I was just cutting the fat off the meat and skipping straight to the most useful stuff and ignoring everything else. Worked for me.
I tried to make it to most of my lectures in final year, it wasn't so much because I got stuff out of them that I couldn't from the slides or readings, but found that if I was avoiding specific modules I would be working less in them when it came to revision and assignments because I was justifying skipping by telling myself that they were boring or easy. Even though some of them were, I personally needed to fully commit to the modules to do well in them.

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