Silent Lecture, Loud Courtyard sounds like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and I did that on purpose. Because that movie is also about masters of their art who improve themselves through disciplined training having to deal with loud jackasses who think volume is the same as virtue. Also because it’s an awesome movie. See it! (Or, if you’ve already watched more martial arts movies, let me know your favorite!)
The simple fact is that a lecture is both study hall and meditation chamber and everyone not lecturing should shut the hell up. There’s an entire external universe to talk in! Right outside the door there’s a whole hallway (though makes sure you shush until you’re away from the open doors, a surprising number of physics students seem to think sound can’t get round corners, blaring away about their personal lives to an entire auditorium of smirking students). There are courtyards. Keep going and there are food courts, bars, fountains, lakes, forests, mountains, build yourself a rocket and there’s a whole universe out there, unimaginable space and time where you could shout loud enough to move mountains, to shake the Sun, and no-one would ever mind.
Then there’s one hour in one room where you’ll annoy everyone. More like fifty minutes if your professors uses the usual “university time” of ten minutes past the hour. One room! Not even an hour! Are these people coming in to chat in the lecture infants? Can’t they control their own mouth at all?
If you are a talker I’ve got some truth to tell: people hate you. HATE you! But they can’t tell you, because you’re not worth the hassle or the risk of annoying. Someone talking in the lecture has already established they’re a loud idiot with no understanding of normal human interaction. There’s no telling what they might do. But make no mistake, people hate them.
The days of being the “cool kid” chatting in class to show they weren’t really studying are over. Honestly they never really existed, not in the long run, but they absolutely ended with high school. Because that’s the last time students are forced to sit in school against their will. Under those circumstances talking in class could count as a protest — a stupid protest, literally stupid because it’s working to make sure you don’t learn things when everyone else is getting smarter — but that stage is absolutely over.
Making all the effort to go to university, investing years of life and all that expense, and then working NOT to learn? That’s utterly, unquestionably wrong. Sometimes students say “Oh, I’m only talking to help my friend understand the material!” Imagine they said when they were in the cinema. “I’m only talking to explain the plot to my friend!” Still annoying, and movies don’t even have exams at the end. If they really care they’ll help their friend after class, instead of sabotaging all the people around them during it.
Even if you don’t care about anyone else it’s still a good idea to keep quiet. Keeping quiet is a conscious decision to listen, to learn, to extract as much as possible from every lecture. And the more you learn in every lecture, the less you’ll have to study the material later, leaving more time to truly talking to friends somewhere fun.
The simple fact is that a lecture is both study hall and meditation chamber and everyone not lecturing should shut the hell up. There’s an entire external universe to talk in! Right outside the door there’s a whole hallway (though makes sure you shush until you’re away from the open doors, a surprising number of physics students seem to think sound can’t get round corners, blaring away about their personal lives to an entire auditorium of smirking students). There are courtyards. Keep going and there are food courts, bars, fountains, lakes, forests, mountains, build yourself a rocket and there’s a whole universe out there, unimaginable space and time where you could shout loud enough to move mountains, to shake the Sun, and no-one would ever mind.
Then there’s one hour in one room where you’ll annoy everyone. More like fifty minutes if your professors uses the usual “university time” of ten minutes past the hour. One room! Not even an hour! Are these people coming in to chat in the lecture infants? Can’t they control their own mouth at all?
If you are a talker I’ve got some truth to tell: people hate you. HATE you! But they can’t tell you, because you’re not worth the hassle or the risk of annoying. Someone talking in the lecture has already established they’re a loud idiot with no understanding of normal human interaction. There’s no telling what they might do. But make no mistake, people hate them.
A lecture is both study hall and meditation chamber and everyone not lecturing should shut the hell up.
The days of being the “cool kid” chatting in class to show they weren’t really studying are over. Honestly they never really existed, not in the long run, but they absolutely ended with high school. Because that’s the last time students are forced to sit in school against their will. Under those circumstances talking in class could count as a protest — a stupid protest, literally stupid because it’s working to make sure you don’t learn things when everyone else is getting smarter — but that stage is absolutely over.
Making all the effort to go to university, investing years of life and all that expense, and then working NOT to learn? That’s utterly, unquestionably wrong. Sometimes students say “Oh, I’m only talking to help my friend understand the material!” Imagine they said when they were in the cinema. “I’m only talking to explain the plot to my friend!” Still annoying, and movies don’t even have exams at the end. If they really care they’ll help their friend after class, instead of sabotaging all the people around them during it.
Even if you don’t care about anyone else it’s still a good idea to keep quiet. Keeping quiet is a conscious decision to listen, to learn, to extract as much as possible from every lecture. And the more you learn in every lecture, the less you’ll have to study the material later, leaving more time to truly talking to friends somewhere fun.
