Article: Why don't university students attend lectures?

I have three subjects this year, and we are currently in week 9:

Economics: Two missed, one because my nap overran, another because I had an essay due and needed to work on it.

Maths: Lecturer is awful, but I've gone to about 80% of the lectures as maths is not my strongest point, and it's sometimes useful.

Intl Relations: went to them all for the first month, then realised the overview they gave you was repeated in all the compulsory reading, making the lectures void if you actually did the tutorial readings. I also work until five minutes before the lecture starts, and I'm kinda awkward which makes it hard to go into the hall if I finish work late. Probably go to 1/3 a week now.

Last year I took chemistry, biology and maths. I only missed maths when I slept in, and tried to attend every lecture as I found the bio/chem ones really useful :smile:

it does depend on the subject/lecturers though!

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 81

Kiytt

11

Original post by Reue

Because for many people, students & employers (myself included) a degree is just a piece of paper to get you past the initial HR screening.

And that's a reason to not give a rat's ass?

Reply 82

Reue

20

Original post by Kiytt

And that's a reason to not give a rat's ass?

That's a reason not to bother with lectures if you can pass the exams anyway.

Reply 83

Kiytt

11

Original post by Reue

That's a reason not to bother with lectures if you can pass the exams anyway.

There isn't any guarantee you will. Better to fully utilise what you're paying for and minimise the risk.

Or better yet, don't pay into a system that is f*cking this generation over. Just a suggestion, though.

Reply 84

Reue

20

Original post by Kiytt

There isn't any guarantee you will. Better to fully utilise what you're paying for and minimise the risk.

Or better yet, don't pay into a system that is f*cking this generation over. Just a suggestion, though.

I wasn't suggesting it as advice, just answering the question as to Why don't university students attend lectures.

No need to provide suggestions to me, I don't pay university fees currently or in the foreseeable future :smile:

Reply 85

Kiytt

11

Original post by Reue

I wasn't suggesting it as advice, just answering the question as to Why don't university students attend lectures.

No need to provide suggestions to me, I don't pay university fees currently or in the foreseeable future :smile:

The presumption that you'll still pass despite missing a large proportion of lectures isn't really solid grounds for essentially gambling £27k in the hopes to come out with a 2:1 or above.

It wasn't directed at you personally—more at the people in this thread who admit to only going because they feel inclined to.

Reply 86

Jammy Duel

21

Original post by Kiytt

There isn't any guarantee you will. Better to fully utilise what you're paying for and minimise the risk.

Or better yet, don't pay into a system that is f*cking this generation over. Just a suggestion, though.

What you're paying for is the piece of paper at the end, if you are on a course with full or near full notes online, especially if uploaded before the lectures, there is not always much point in going. For many it isn't worth spending the time in the lecture when you can cover the !material in half the time, or less; in one of the few lectures I've been to this year we spent well over an hour covering something that can be done in about 5 minutes, so many lectures have pointless fillers.

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Reply 87

Kiytt

11

Original post by Jammy Duel

What you're paying for is the piece of paper at the end, if you are on a course with full or near full notes online, especially if uploaded before the lectures, there is not always much point in going. For many it isn't worth spending the time in the lecture when you can cover the !material in half the time, or less; in one of the few lectures I've been to this year we spent well over an hour covering something that can be done in about 5 minutes, so many lectures have pointless fillers.

Posted from TSR Mobile

I understand this; and I guess what I said is only really applicable to very specific scenarios, i.e. skipping genuinely useful lectures because you're too hungover or can't be assed to go. It's a waste of your money and your lecturer's time, in that case.

(edited 8 years ago)

Reply 88

BlindingLight

21

Original post by Kiytt

I understand this; and I guess what I said is only really applicable to very specific scenarios, i.e. skipping genuinely useful lectures because you're too hungover or can't be assed to go. It's a waste of your money and your lecturer's time, in that case.

As long as they get the £££ for reading of a powerpoint it doesn't really matter :wink:

Reply 89

liangliang

2

Everything said in lecture is almost verbatim what's in the textbook. I would rather use the hour working and actually learning rather than try to pay attention to (something I've already read) someone talk over constant coughs and laptop keys. Seminars/tutorials are far more useful and interesting and if I have a question I ask it there.

Reply 90

wknight

1

If you don't need to attend the lectures then you are being ripped off and why are you bothering to get yourself into huge debt. You should complain to the Students Union and demand a refund. Why do courses last 3 or 4 years when you can probably learn it all in 1 or 2years, thus saving loads of money. Just wait until you have a job when you have to attend all those boring meetings and you can't be late.

Reply 91

somethingbeautiful

18

Original post by wknight

If you don't need to attend the lectures then you are being ripped off and why are you bothering to get yourself into huge debt. You should complain to the Students Union and demand a refund. Why do courses last 3 or 4 years when you can probably learn it all in 1 or 2years, thus saving loads of money. Just wait until you have a job when you have to attend all those boring meetings and you can't be late.

I skipped lectures at uni. Got a 2.1. I go to work on time and attend boring meetings - difference is, I don't care because I get paid to do it.

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Reply 92

TheGiantPunkGooner

10

So far, the only lecture I've missed was a guest speaker lecture that wasn't happening regularly so forgot about it, plus the student newspaper and magazine I'm a part of had a meeting at the same time so I had that in my mind instead of the lecture. Our School of Humanities have an attendance requirement (75%) that we must meet at the end of the year, otherwise we fail the course, so I don't want to risk that.

Reply 93

TheGiantPunkGooner

10

Original post by sr90

The fact that only 6 people showed up, it accused us of not taking our degrees seriously and being ''parasitic freeloaders''

It was absolutely hilarious to read.

Haha, nice

Reply 94

Pro Crastination

19

Does staying at home for the Panoptoed ones count as skipping? Otherwise the only ones I miss are for a reason - e.g. job interviews.

Reply 95

Claire461

21

I've had to take time off going into lectures/seminars at the moment as I've had a heart attack. But I'm doing my assignments at home while I recover. The Disability service arranged it with uni that I could go back in after Christmas and my GP has written to them to support me.bhowever, when I went to get an extension form for one assignment the other day, I was approached in the corridor in full view of other students by admin woman along the lines that if my health is stopping me from carrying out my studies, and that the uni will monitor my attendance, then more or less should rethink position re being at uni. Since the beginning of the academic year I have not missed a lecture or seminar, but there are many students on my course who don't come to either. Feeling annoyed.

Reply 96

SebastianMesser

11

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)

Although Universities do keep tabs on attendance (required by HEFCE and the UK Border Agency) so, ultimately, there may be sanctions or expulsion for missing too much, the bottom line is students have chosen to attend university rather than look for a job; they are supposed to be interested in the subject; and are paying around £70/hr of contact time for the priviledge (at least in theory). No lecturer is going to "punish" them for not turning up because the student is supposed to be an adult and it is not compulsory for them to attend anything. Lecturers would rather spend their time with students who are interested in their subject and engage with them rather than on the hassle of chasing people who can't be bothered to be there.

Obviously different subjects have different delivery mechanisms (if you take a subject which is based on practical experience in a lab or workshop, or an art and design subject, then you will have a lot less lectures - having done an arts based degree I'd never even heard of seminars until a few years ago!) however, it's widely accepted that the old "chalk and talk" lecture is the least effective way of teaching. It has the advantage for Universities (which are businesses after all) - if not for the students or for the lecturers - of being comparatively cheap to deliver and the number of students that can be recruited is limited only by the capacity of the lecture theatre. Distance Learning (DL) and MOOKS are even better, there's no real estate required!

I agree that not all lecturers are good at lecturing - reading from the PowerPoint is deathly - but spending 3 or 5 years alone in a library completing a PhD is not going to make you entertaining and charismatic, or gain the experiences of the "real world" which make lectures colourful... There is a fundamental problem growing across Higher Education around the world that (like in politics, where there is now a recruitment policy that reinforces a separate class of self-selecting political wannabes) so Universities are only appointing to lecturer positions people with PhDs rather than professional experience in the field in which they lecture; with a track record in making applications for funding bids and for publishing papers which only other university lecturers read, instead of being recognised for their abilities to do the job - whether that job is the subject discipline, teaching or even management, which are all entirely different skills.

The reasons for this recruitmenth policy are that "research power" gives a big swing in The Complete and in the Times League Tables (thereby attracting more students to the cheaper, lecture based courses) - the Guardian League Table gives more emphasis to the students' experience, based on their weighting of e National Student Survey and other measures like the percentage of students with 2:1s and 1st - but this methodology is also deeply flawed as it encourages grade inflation - and also because of the Research Excellence Framework (REF), by which the government decided which Universities would receive what share of the dwindling amount of money that the Treasury will give to Higher Education for the next 4 or 5 years.

Lectures are not supposed to tell you what to write in an essay or an exam. You are a student not a pupil and are supposed to be interested in the subject you are studying. Lectures should be an introduction to what you need to know, or may just be to introduce you to something you have never heard of or a completely new way of thinking about something. The lecture slides which are posted on Blackboard/eLP are, at best, just enough to scrape a third. You're being encouraged to become independent and self-motivated, not to regurgitate for an exam (an increasingly difficult transition as successive government ministers think they know better than teachers how to "improve" GCSE and A'Level results).

Someone else in this thread said they only go to the lectures that they know they are going to learn from. Um, how exactly do you "know" this if you haven't been to the lecture? There are lecturers and subjects which are more enjoyable than others, but the difficult or dry lectures may well be the ones which are most useful to you when you go for a job...

Universities don't listen to the teaching staff. Mangement are driven by the "prestige" of League Tables and the REF and the metrics of the National Student Survey (NSS). If you want to improve the teaching and your experience, then support your lecturers, most of whom will be doing their best but without having any say or control over the number of students, or the level at which they are teaching. Whilst University management are dazzled by the REF, it's still around 90% of every UK Universities' income comes from the student fees.

Chose you course carefully, try to ensure it is something you are actually interested in (nothing to me seems more dangerous than Clearing), turn up and engage - don't just sit there, ask and answer questions, talk to your lecturers, and when the University asks you (which will be through your student reps at programme meetings, in module feedback forms, as well as the NSS: by which stage it's too late for the improvements to benefit you) make it clear if you want to be taught by career academics or academics with practical experience; if you are happy in a lecture theatre with 200 other people or if you want tutorials and seminars where the lecturer can learn your name. Students have a very powerful voice.

Reply 97

SebastianMesser

11

Original post by Jammy Duel

What you're paying for is the piece of paper at the end

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Very sad. You can buy a piece of paper from a dodgy American or Chinese website. If you're not at University because you are passionate about the subject and enjoy learning for learning's sake, then you're wasting your time as well as wasting the opportunity for another person who could have taken your place and made better use of what's available at University.