The EPIC Turkey Day.. ZOMG & THE EPIC XMAS D.T BOOM ROASTED!

It never goes away.

I never skipped class in college, but more than once I've had a dream where I completely forgot to attend a class all quarter and woke in a panic because without it I couldn't graduate.

I graduated from college in 1992.

 

Christ Mike Birbiglia is my spirit animal. Especially the "Great plans" part. Morning Cowbell is a tricky, convincing bastard. One time he almost convinced me that my boss had called and told me I didn't have to go in to work. Nope. Turns out that was a dream. Morning Cowbell is an asshole.

 

I was thinking more along the lines of this...



O'DOYLE RULES!

 

Nom... Jesus. The ad on that video is "Find Sexy Gay Muscle Men Near You! <a class="postlink" href="http://www.gaymusclematch.com" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.gaymusclematch.com</a>.

 

CJ, I don't know what to tell you -- I'm getting ads for holiday gifts. Maybe it has something to do with your search history, hmmmmm?

 

Less talking about gay sex, and more naked part Asian women.

 

God, who are you people? How did you never skip class? I skipped probably 50% of my classes first couple of years and did just fine--no nightmares, no bad grades, no trauma. I went when I actually like the class/professor, or when (godawful idea) attendance was required.

I don't really understand having to be in class, unless it's a v. small seminar class. If I can not go and still get an A, who cares? And if it is a very small seminar class, you shouldn't have to require attendance. It should be interesting enough that the students who chose to enroll actually WANT to attend.

 

You should have taken harder classes.

 

Fucking art students.*

Skip an advanced analytical chemistry lecture and tell me that you can make that shit up by reading the textbook. I went to EVERY fucking class, even when I was hungover or still drunk. Why? A) Because I paid for them, and not going is a waste of money; and B) Because the courses I took were fucking HARD and I actually wanted to learn the material. Bewildered took orgo - she can back me up to the hilt on this one.

*I realize this is likely a very incorrect generalization, but every art student I knew in school skipped classes left, right and centre and bitched about their "15 hours of class a week".

 

I walked into a class my freshman year with a hangover that I hadn't been to in 2 or 3 weeks and it turned out to be mid term day. Whoops. Still managed a C, which says more about the quality of education at the University of Colorado than it does about my brain.

 

I took Organic Chemistry as well and got an A- only showing up to quizzes, tests and lab. That's not to say I'm super smart or anything, I just learn better at my own pace and tend to space out in lectures. I actually would dedicate what time I would have spent in lecture and walking to and from class to study.

I still had to pull a few all nighters because that was one hell of a class, but I beat just about everyone that went diligently. I did the same with advanced math classes (though admittedly I wasn't as diligent because there was less material). Not everyone absorbs material well in a lecture format.

 

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that you didn't study engineering. At my college we were on quarters and we covered in 10 weeks what a lot of other schools covered in a semester. We also didn't have TA's. Every class I ever took was taught by a professor.

 

I am wearing sparkly tights, booty shorts, and leg warmers.

fuck dress codes and jobs that require them.

 

Awww yeah! In my graduating seminar for English lit, we had a big intimidating reading list for the class. However, I quickly realized that the way the assignments were designed allowed me to read a very small percentage of what was on the list; all I would miss out on was being able to participate in the discussions. That was fine by me, because I didn't go to class anyway. I read two novels, wrote an essay on one, another essay on both, and then wrote my final paper on a movie we watched. Booyah! A-!

Now, obviously I didn't really "outsmart" the system, because I still just ended up with an English degree at the end of the day, but whatever.

 

I went to the University of Chicago. I was an English major who took all the premed required courses, worked full time in a lab my first two years and full time coordinating a clinical trial my last two years. We were on the quarter system. I just didn't go when my professors were idiots or if my class was taught by a TA. Or if I had a good grasp on the material without class--like all of gen chem and most of biology. I took mostly graduate classes and more than a full course load, so let's not throw stones/make assumptions we can't back up.

 

The bolded part always confuses me. Not to dispute it, but is this actually most people's experience? Mine was that in the classes caught by grad students, there was no discernible difference in teaching quality, and often any subject depth differences were compensated by increased ability in actually presenting the material in an interesting/useful fashion. And I also had classes with both a TA and a lecturing professor where the TA was better.

 

I had maybe two talented TAs. In my experience, they were usually trying desperately to prove that they were smart enough/talented enough, and so ended up being incredibly rigid and unwilling to consider new ideas. The only place I ever had a TA and a professor was in science classes, and my TAs were always brilliant Asian students who spoke very little English and were extremely bad at explaining things. They basically administered quizzes/watched us during labs. Maybe that's abnormal, though? I went out of my way to avoid TA taught classes, so I don't really have a large sample.

 

I was thinking the same thing, we didn't have classes that were exclusively taught by TA's, but there were a couple classes I took where I would skip lecture and go to the TA taught recitations because they were way more efficient and the TA's were much more effective at knowing how to communicate the information to the students.

 

Please, Fry! I don’t know how to teach. I’m a professor!

 

He went to my university. I'm just going to quote myself from the Rant & Rave thread.

Still working on that presentation. It's due in an hour.