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What were your first/best/worst seminars, lectures, labs like?

Especially--what was your first [seminar/lab/lecture] like? Any funny/interesting stories? :biggrin:

I can't really remember too much from first year but I can remember after our first computing lecture my friends and I decided we wouldn't be attending any more of them. The lecturer was a computer science guy wearing a cape who sounded like the lovechild of Colin Firth and a Dalek, and the lecture consisted of him reading exactly what was written on the PowerPoint and then correcting his mistakes in-class.

He's definitely the worst lecturer I've had. One of the best researchers, but that doesn't exactly help us when we're trying to understand how to use MatLab. Instead we just copied up the lecture notes after he uploaded them and only went to the discrete half of the lectures. He definitely put me off programming.

Reply 2

Yoyo94

Original post by blackpuma137

Especially--what was your first [seminar/lab/lecture] like? Any funny/interesting stories? :biggrin:

I'm going to start my second year in September so I've still got really strong memories of the first year, and I can definitely give you some interesting (and perhaps funny) stories! The stories you will get will differ from university to university, and from course to course (obviously :wink:

).

If I can recall correctly, I initially thought my first lecture was quite good, until I attempted the tutorial sheet that we were given to complete by next session. I can still remember that sheet almost a year on! It was hell! It was supposed to contain material from the stuff that the lecturer coved, but I only wish it did. Instead, it covered stuff that I had to teach myself and it was my first taste of university learning, not a pleasant one indeed! Sometimes, what lecturers cover won't be sufficient enough to help you answer tutorial questions, and this was a great example of it. And there was a lot of assumed knowledge (basically stuff that lecturers can't be bothered to "teach" you but instead expect you to know already), which really made things more difficult for us.

With regards to my best lecture, it depends on how you define best. Best as in best lecturing, best things that happened, etc.. I'd say my best lecture was one in which a friend asked the lecturer a question, and straight after the lecturer responded, my friend's iPhone's Siri miraculously went off and said "I don't understand what you are saying...". That was hilarious and the whole lecture room erupted with laughter, and so did the lecturer! I was sitting right next to my friend and his hands were nowhere near his phone, which was on the surface in front of us, so that just added to the mystery and kept me in a good mood. The lecturer then made some hilarious references to the incident at appropriate times during that lecture, so it was a very good hour indeed.

Don't even get me started on my worst lecture, or bad lectures in general. There were plenty but nothing compared to this one lecture that was actually an embarrassment by our department. This lecture was one of two lectures that were done by PhD students, and it was outrageously bad. The student running the lecture was so casual and it seemed like he didn't know any of the stuff he was meant to be covering. He walked into the lecture room, probably said under 50 words in total and copied down some solutions to past exam questions to the board without explaining anything. When we asked him to explain, he was absolutely useless and it was such a waste of time that people started to systematically walk out of the lecture hall not even close to the end of the lecture (some of the very smart students were amongst those who did). A friend recorded the lecture so that we could complain about the wasted time, but nothing was done about the complaint, even though similar style questions came up on our Christmas tests, which I couldn't answer. I managed to teach it all to myself in preparation for the final exams, so all was good in the end, but it was particularly traumatising at the time.

Seminars were all good apart from a couple of bad ones, so not too many complaints about them. They just covered the tutorial sheets that our lecturers set at the end of their lectures to make sure we understood the subject properly (it's casual and you can ask the person running the seminar any questions you like, and they'll try to help you understand).

As I'm doing engineering, we had to do so many labs and write up lengthy lab reports. Our first lab was conveniently guided and the supervisors helped us and rectified some of our mistakes, even though they were apparently instructed to provide minimal assistance. My best lab was that which required no writeup of a lab report, and was relatively much easier and more relaxed than the other labs that we had to take. My worst lab was really dull and boring because it was based on electrical components and the different graphs that you get with different components and alternations of the circuits.

I hope you found this interesting! :smile:

Reply 3

sliceofcake

I remember what I think was my first ever lecture. I study history of art, so typically enough the lecturer decided to ask "what is art?". He wasn't really expecting any answers, that was fine. He proceeded to screw up a ball of paper and ask "is this art?" and people were giving their opinions on whether it was or not, but then one particular student gave the most pretentious answer, and immediately gave everyone a bad impression of him even to this day: "it's not art.... yet!" Ugh. No. I know my subject is typically perceived as pretentious and pointless but I assure you, it's not as pretentious and pointless as that response.

Because the lecturer didn't crap everywhere over such an annoying answer, I left that lecture feeling like I'd made a massive mistake in my choice of course or university, I wasn't sure which. So, nearly 2 years later I'm still here and the pretentiousness has calmed somewhat, but whatever.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 4

HeavyTeddy

My first lab session was bloody dreadful. I had been feeling ill the entire day (with a temperature) and to make it worse, I thought that our first lab session was a field session (do some plant collections to bring back to the lab) and the weather was really horrible that day so I wore a couple of layers. I ended up running a bit late and when I got to the labs everyone was already inside and the session was about to start, so I just walked to the nearest work station and dropped my bags, tried to look for a seat and everything was taken, but that was alright since I assumed we'd be out in the field for like 3 hours. Now here is where it all got ****ty. Instead of it being a field session, it ended up being an inductory session (which we already had in tutorials where they told us what and what not to do in labs), and I was there standing like a muppet with several layers on in an underground lab AND I already had a high temperature. 30 minutes in I was sweating and dizzy and I had to waddle to the front, interrupt the proffessor and ask to leave because I was feeling ill, whilst the entire year group was watching. Nothing short of embarrsing.

Worst lecture was equally embarrsing. So I was sitting in the cafe in the students union and I was checking my uni messages for the day when I saw a new message about an urgent meeting for exams. WTF. I immediately panicked and made my way to the lecture theatre where this random meeting for all the students was held. Now, I'm not normally late but this time I was around 12-13 minutes late and as I walked in (the door to the theatre is at the bottom so everyone is basically watching as you walk in) the lecturer who happened to be the head of the year had a massive hissy fit. She basically stopped discussing whatever she was saying and started scolding me in front of my entire year group as I looked around to find a seat. Even when I sat down, she carried on for another five minutes talking about what how she would've kicked me out if I were a second year. Some other guys came after me and I don't know she must really hate late-comers because she flipped her ****. She started shouting at them and then told them to leave. T'was awful.

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 5

xDave-

First few were awkward as **** as you met new people all the time. It was hard to get to know anyone as you couldn't really chat, you had to do work. I lived off campus so I didn't speak to anyone out of class. Maybe could've on Facebook if I looked them up or something but I wouldn't have known what to say anyway,

Best were in the second term and onwards, when we were forced into groups to do work, so people actually spoke to each other. You also knew a few people by this point, so you could sit with people you liked.

Worst were where the lecturers would constantly pause to ask us questions and no one would answer. 24 weeks of that is not cool.

Reply 6

jelly1000

First lecture- first proper lecture (as opposed to the introductory outlining the module content..) was on intercourse, we were given a handout by Weber or Durkheim or Marx (can't remember who) about the intercourse of man- on the sheet it explained that in German there were several different words for intercourse depending on the type.

Worst seminars- first year History, you had to have done the reading to know what to talk about but hardly anyone did so it was painfull awkward.

Reply 7

blackpuma137

Oooh, all these responses are great! It's kinda awful how some lecturers can put you off entire subjects though, and I just about died from second-hand embarrassment from some of these posts.

This was absolutely hilarious though:

Original post by Yoyo94

I'd say my best lecture was one in which a friend asked the lecturer a question, and straight after the lecturer responded, my friend's iPhone's Siri miraculously went off and said "I don't understand what you are saying...".

Thanks guys--these were all awesome to read! Any more?

Reply 8

BlueSheep32

I remember my first lecture was a 9am Chemistry lecture on a Monday morning, and I was still in the "FREEEDOM FROM PARENTS!" mindset and had stayed up until 3am the night before just because I could so I was struggling to stay awake at times :rolleyes:

And the lecture had me terrified for what was to come - the lecturer gave us a handout but missed a lot of important things off it, and it was all about hard stuff like Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle and the Schrodinger equation.

First lab session was a complete disaster...it was also a Chemistry lab, and was my last class of my first proper week of teaching in first year. It involved a titration and I am absolutely terrified of using glass pipettes because during my A2 Chemistry ISA I managed to snap one into my finger whilst trying to get the filler off (still have a scar from it). So this made me really anxious and nervous about using them and I ended up in tears and the lab demonstrator clearly had no idea what to do with me. I was the last one to leave the lab (after 5 on a Friday...) and had no good results to use for my write-up. Luckily it was only a worksheet and they didn't check our lab books so I managed to make up some stuff and get 18/20 for it. This all seems so long ago now!

My worst lecture was probably one in second year when we had a lecturer who was clearly terrified of public speaking; it was the first time she'd lectured on the topic because the person who normally did it had stopped lecturing to concentrate on his research. She spoke really quietly and faced the board which didn't help, and a few times during the lecture people went past in the corridor with trolleys and drowned her out completely. The best part though was when a girl sneezed really loudly and the lecturer turned her head around really slowly and gave the girl a right glare.

Reply 9

rayquaza17

I've got a lot of funny stories, but they are all mostly 'you had to be there' stories!

Original post by Yoyo94

I love this!!

Reply 10

Yoyo94

Original post by rayquaza17

I've got a lot of funny stories, but they are all mostly 'you had to be there' stories!

I love this!!

Reply 11

blackpuma137

Original post by BlueSheep32

First lab session was a complete disaster...it was also a Chemistry lab, and was my last class of my first proper week of teaching in first year. It involved a titration and I am absolutely terrified of using glass pipettes because during my A2 Chemistry ISA I managed to snap one into my finger whilst trying to get the filler off (still have a scar from it). So this made me really anxious and nervous about using them and I ended up in tears and the lab demonstrator clearly had no idea what to do with me. I was the last one to leave the lab (after 5 on a Friday...) and had no good results to use for my write-up. Luckily it was only a worksheet and they didn't check our lab books so I managed to make up some stuff and get 18/20 for it. This all seems so long ago now!

I'm absolutely terrified of something like this happening to me :s-smilie:

Reply 12

BlueSheep32

Original post by blackpuma137

I'm absolutely terrified of something like this happening to me :s-smilie:

Aww, don't be! I hope I haven't scared you - I definitely didn't see anyone else having such a bad time in the lab that afternoon. Labs (particularly Chemistry ones) don't always go to plan anyway, as long as it's not something dangerous that happens you can often laugh about it afterwards. I'm sure you'll be fine, they're usually really helpful in first year :smile: