Lectures. A waste of time?

Poll

Are lectures pointless

In final year and finding lectures aren't worth the time it takes to go there. Second year, I probably slept through half of them (partly, bad sleeping pattern and very boring lectures), but that was also when I decided this whole uni thing isn't really worth what I'm paying for it. I don't learn anything in lectures, even the ones I'm awake for (which is all of them this year). Evidently others at this uni think the same judging by the attrition rate in attendance for every module I'm in. Most of the time lecturers just read off the slides for most of the lecture and for some reason insist on having 60 slides to fit into one hour/50 minutes. I have my laptop in every lecture, but I'm normally on the internet (When the WiFi is working. Uni somehow managed to break that), sometimes playing chess on my Macbook. One time I was even video editing in lecture to meet a release deadline.

Point is, I've found I don't learn anything by being in the actual lecture. The Listen Again service teaches me more and some times I can learn what they were trying to say in 5 minutes by searching online or just watching a video on it. I don't even buy the recommended textbooks anymore we literally never use them.
Anyone else feel the same?

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Reply 1

yabbayabba

Yep! By 2nd year your academic skills are pretty much learnt so the only thing you're being "taught" is content, which I'd much prefer to do at home cos that's just reading. Not going to lectures in the first year won't do you much harm either.

Academics can't teach either, they're terrible. Mostly because that's not their primary goal, they care about their research, not students.

So you're just being forced to sit in a room, with a bunch of people you don't really know or like, and do less than you would compared to reading in your bedroom.

Lectures are pointless!

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(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 2

_Kath

Depends on what you study.
For us we can only get a 2:1 by showing evidence of wider reading. So if a quote is used in the lecture, it means we wouldn't be able to use that quote in an exam/essay no matter how useful it is as they would accuse us of just using lecture notes and then would only give us a 2:2! So if anything lectures are just limiting what we can study.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 3

DasSnipez

I find it depends on the lecture.

I had one that was interesting but almost useless to the course and another that is boring as hell but probably useful to the course.

I really don't care if stripes can be used to lead you around a level.

I think the problem with the dedicated lecture slots is that they are aimed at more than one group in a department, so as programmers we are in with designers who may well get much more use out of what we are learning.

Reply 4

TorpidPhil

It depends heavily on the quality of the lecturer.

Reply 5

AManWithAPlan

Yep. They seem completely useless to me. What they're doing is reading what is on the board, and only elaborating on it slightly with a load of gibberish in between. I stayed home for 3 of my modules in the first year and managed to bag 2:1s in all of them. I'm much better off just reading journals and comprehending the content myself.

Reply 6

mine turtle

I'd say 66% of people who should be in this lecture aren't here.

Reply 7

Josb

Original post by mine turtle

What's your university/subject?

Reply 8

mine turtle

Original post by Josb

What's your university/subject?

University of Essex
Biomedical Science

Reply 9

SophieSmall

Completely depends on the lecturer, subject and student.

I personally rarely find lectures helpful.

Reply 10

SophieSmall

Original post by mine turtle

Same, also a biomed student.

Reply 11

ibuk

Original post by SophieSmall

Completely depends on the lecturer, subject and student.

I personally rarely find lectures helpful.

It's the ones you miss that were often useful, right?

Reply 12

SophieSmall

Original post by ibuk

It's the ones you miss that were often useful, right?

Thanks for making an assumption.

But no.

Reply 13

Teaddict

Much like the original poster, I very rarely attend lectures - an issue that many of my lecturers have grown accustomed to. I will always attend seminars, however. I tend to find lectures are less sufficient in providing information than journal articles or other scholarly texts, and my doing the research myself I am engaging with the classical literature itself rather than a condensed version of it. Seminars are different, however. Provided all students have prepared for them, they can be an excellent method through which students can test their knowledge in a lively and deliberative environment. Some of my best memories of University are those where a few students and myself have engaged in almost heated discussion on particular issues or theories. Very interesting.

Long story short: Lectures suck, seminars rock.

Reply 14

username1221160

Lecture attendance does correlate with academic performance, although that may simply be that the better students attend more lectures rather than any added value from the lectures.

While I've certainly slept through a few and my attendance is far from perfect (around 80% for this semester, better than ever), I appreciate them from the structure that they provide. Unless you have good self-discipline, it is too easy to replace lecture instead with computer games or whatever.

Reply 15

Ronove

Yep, less than two months in and I've pretty much entirely stopped going to lectures. It's the second time I've been at uni though so I'm not worried about it, unlike all the newbies fresh out of Sixth Form who still haven't quite got their heads around the idea that you can choose what to attend according to how useful you find it/what other stuff you've got going on in your life.

Reply 16

LSD

I didn't take lectures very seriously until final year. I did a biology degree too (genetics) and everything could be learned from the web until final year when, as a previous person wrote, we needed external reading to get a 2:1 or 1st. Lectures were 3 hours long in final year and were about that particular lecturer's personal research/related journal articles we'd have to read for the exams. Slides were mainly just complicated diagrams the lecturer would talk round. So all in all it became incredibly important not to miss them. Understandable though if other universities/courses do it differently, like simply reading from the slides. That's a load of crap I wouldn't bother going if that was the case.

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Reply 17

Josb

To those who don't attend to lectures, I warn you that to be accepted to postgraduate programs, you will have to get recommendation letters. So it could be a wise choice to go to at least three lectures during a whole semester if you want lecturers to remember you and write these letters.

Reply 18

studentLynch

Original post by mine turtle

im in my second year and hardly go in for lectures they are very boring however i will attend more in my final year!

Reply 19

SophieSmall

Original post by Josb

Fat chances of that considering class sizes, there's 172 in mine, no way lecturers are going to remember you unless you talk to them often. Besides wouldn't use a lecturer, would use my personal tutor and lab instructors if I needed more than one recommendation letter.