Oxbridge Lecturers

Tutorial/supervision system - sorted.

But what about the lecturers? I've spoken to current students and a 'significant' proportion have something bad to say about their lecturers. I was quite surprised by this - is it true, in your eyes? I'd have thought that it's still important for most subjects (yes, I know there are exceptions) and so should be taken as seriously as the 1-on-1 system (ooooh errrr!)...Elucidation, please!

Reply 1

H&E

Umm...it's just like tutors. Some are very good and useful, others not. Unlike tutorials, though, if your lecturer's crap you just don't go, get the notes and go through them yourself.

Reply 2

musicbloke

Some are wonderful and some are rubbish. I guess it's cos these people are employed mainly for their research. Teaching undergrads may not be their forte.

MB

Reply 3

amateurish

musicbloke

Some are wonderful and some are rubbish. I guess it's cos these people are employed mainly for their research. Teaching undergrads may not be their forte.

MB

And some just seem to be rubbish at public speaking. I haven't had very many bad lecturers. the problem with the ones that weren't great was nearly always that they weren't very good at translating their knowledge into interesting lectures. mind you, i am terrible for falling asleep in lectures, so maybe it's more my problem than theirs... :wink:

Reply 4

homoterror

Yeah they can be bad for a few reasons, sometimes they have a really bad voice which hypnotises you out of focus, even to sleep. Sometimes they spend the entire term mumbling on about things which aren't really what the course is about, occasionally shrieking "spiiiirals!"

Reply 5

Calvin

Homoterror

occasionally shrieking "spiiiiirals"

Aww I forget how fun lectures can be. I had a lecturer who spent a lecture series quoting the bible and banging his hand on his lecturn. "The seas shall rise up and the world shall boil like a POT!"

And another who would start writing on one side of the board, talk and write all the way across the board in one really long line and then turn and sort of stalk back to the other end to start another line.
Awww... good times :smile:

Reply 6

Alaric

Some can be good, some can be bad. I remember last year there was one (no names) whose title to the first slide was "what is about" :rolleyes:

Compsci lecturers are a bit crazy, and the students obsessive about it.

A.

Reply 7

Mop

homoterror

Did you go to Mr. Russian Jamaican guy's Numerical Analysis lectures last term? Best incomprehensible lecturer ever :biggrin:

Reply 8

mctcdc0710

lol

"What are the four Fs... Feeding, Fleeing, Fighting and Reproducing."

hillarious

Reply 9

Mop

Quotes from the god of mildly bizarre lecturing, Prof. T.W.Korner: http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~ag337/phearwiki.cgi?ACTION=VIEW&PAGE=Korner

Reply 10

homoterror

Mop

Did you go to Mr. Russian Jamaican guy's Numerical Analysis lectures last term? Best incomprehensible lecturer ever :biggrin:

Ooh yes. He made me smile. But come on, Dorzzapf!

Reply 11

musicbloke

We had these lectures on renaissance music and its canonisation. The lecture series were a series of slide shows of bits of italy and occasionally the leecturer would pull his trousers up in a very scary way.

MB

Reply 12

Calvin

Prof. Kunzl-Snodgrass.
That's got to be worth a cheap and nasty laugh?

I seem to remember being told (and played the CD of) a Natsci Lecturer who played home written guitar songs in some of his lectures...