Just One of Those Things (Michael)
[Explanatory post-write note: This was originally going to be one of many topics discussed in a collection of trivial issues, but it turns out that once I start writing about rudeness, I just can’t stop.]
Rudeness
One thing that I certainly didn’t expect coming to the University was the large amount of rudeness — on more than one front. The most obvious manifestation of it is in lectures: any kind of slight lull in the last 10-15 minutes of the lecture seems to be taken as a signal by some to (loudly) pack away their belongings. The problem is that one pack-up begets another, and another, and another, and so on until the entire class is noisily filing papers, zipping pencil-cases, or clipping backpacks. All, of course, while the poor lecturer tries in vain to finish the rest of the material.
Okay, fine, if you have a class on Queensberry St. (or somewhere similarly distant) then leave early if you must. But do it quietly, for crying out loud, and don’t force the lecture to an early end just because you’re not staying.
Oh, and fellow classmates? Please: shut up. And I mean that in two ways. Firstly, if you’re going to spend the entire lecture whispering to your “bestie” about that totally, like, awesome party that you went to last night, why did you come to the lecture at all? Save us all the pain and spend the hour talking outside instead. Secondly, participate in lectures if invited, but don’t participate too much: what you have to say isn’t actually all that interesting to the rest of us. Particularly if it takes you more than a minute to say it. Save it for the tutorials. (Interestingly, people in my Commerce subject class have the right idea about this; it’s the Arts subjects that are full of windbags.)
(Warning: This paragraph contains a somewhat irrelevant and generally unrepresentative anecdote. The sensible reader is advised just to skip it.) So I’m sitting in an Anthropology lecture, minding my own business, when — about half-an-hour into the lecture — along comes Latecomer, sitting himself next to me. The lecture continues without incident, &c., &c. About half-an-hour later, it’s time for a break before the next half of the lecture. I filled him in on a little of the administrivia that he’d missed — this wasn’t an unsolicited fill-in, by the way — and I was in the middle of explaining where to pick up the week’s reading when he turned around and began a conversation with somebody he knew sitting behind him. Gentle reader, I will indeed excuse you if your eyebrows need a moment to make out with your hairline — mine certainly did. I thought it was probably a misunderstanding, or something, but when this new conversation was completed he turned back to me and said “You were saying something…?”. “No,” I said to him, while saying to myself “Self, this will be a moral victory. No reading photocopies for you, rude Latecomer.” And that was that. Or, at least, that was that until the overly-helpful secretary from the School of Anthropology, Hair Styling, and Aerodynamics (or whatever they’ve merged with recently) brought the photocopies to the lecture theatre instead of leaving them in the basement of Bouverie St. And thus was my karmic revenge undone. (I did warn you to skip this paragraph; It doesn’t even really interest me, and I’d quite forgotten about the whole thing until I bumped into Latecomer himself outside the tutorial room this week. Rest assured, I gave him the most disdainful look I could muster.)
One final thing: Mobile phones. Grrr. Silence them, or turn them off. And if you forget, don’t answer the bloody thing. And if you do answer it, don’t stay in the room. Hiding under the desk doesn’t make you less rude nor less audible, and whispering doesn’t make you less rude. Sheesh.
(I have to admit: I lose one moral-high-groundness point because my own mobile phone rang in a lecture last week. But I silenced it immediately and turned it off. And it was a dull part of the lecture anyway.)
One more (really) final thing: The rudeness isn’t only on the part of students. My Anthropology lecturer never apologies (not even briefly) for being late, which annoys me immensely. It doesn’t have to be profuse or even sincere; just a brief acknowledgement would be nice. I know that lectures officially start 5 minutes after the scheduled time, but to me that means that the lecturer arrives at the original time, does any necessary set up or preparation in the theatre, and begins, you know, actually lecturing at 5 minutes past the start. So I disapprove of this lecturer who usually arrives at 10 minutes after, then sets up (leisurely, I might add), and then begins lecturing.
This was going to be a kind of mish-mash post of miscellanea that otherwise wouldn’t merit its own posting, but it turns out that I actually have a lot to say about rudeness. A lot of which is necessarily, I guess, negative. The first-year blog oracle has this to say about negativity: “However, if you do encounter a problem, we’d like to hear also what action you took to fix the situation, and how that worked out.” It’s sage advice for any situation, I guess.
I’m not really sure what action I can take to fix any of the aforementioned situations, though. There’s a limit to the number of dirty looks I can give to people talking in lectures (I considered passing a “fermez la bouche, s’il vous plaît” note to a particularly gossipy pair in Monday’s French lecture), and I’m not exactly going to tell a lecturer that I think his unapologetic lateness is rude. I guess what I’ll try to do is take an easygoing, zen-like attitude: people might still be rude, but maybe it won’t bother me so much any more.
So, er, sorry about the mostly negative tone of this post. Puppies, kittens, and rainbows next time, I promise!
Interactivity!: Do you find people rude at uni., and how do you deal with it? Comment below!
I agree with you 100% Michael on the rudeness of students in lectures. My friend and I were just discussing the other day how inconsiderate some of the students were. It is really disrespectful to the lecturer who (in my opinion) genuinely cares about teaching his students to the best of his ability. The least a student can do in return is to show some appreciation by packing up and leaving after the lecturer has officially announced that the session has finished. It’s simple manners.
David
Rudeness is everywhere at uni, isn’t it? I tend to blame it on the fact that we’re all arrogant 18-24 year olds.
My pet hate at the moment is people crowding the exits to lecture theatres, particularly the Copland Theatre. Yes, I know you’re waiting to enter the theatre for your own lecture, but if you let us leave first, then it’ll be much faster. Seriously, someone could die in there. Tomorrow I think I’ll try crowd surfing. 🙂
I find people incredibly, incredibly nice and polite here. But I’m from China — I’m used to much worse.
I agree with you about the mobile phones. The entrance doors clearly say “please turn off your mobile phones” (or similar), yet, lots of people fail to see it (purposefully?).
I haven’t encountered the other two annoyances (my lecturers are particularly nice and the people next to me are really focused on the material).
As the saying goes: “to err is human”. If none of us errs, this world would have been a perfect place.
Well, perhaps, you can kindly remind those talking bees that they’re in a lecture, not a social meeting. Hopefully, they’ll be embarrassed and stop.
Cheers,
Hey, good post though it was quite rude, atleast u got it off ur chest!
I would say the majority of ppl here are nice but u never know, there are SOME poeple who are DIFFERENT.
I had one instance which I mentioned in my blog, where I try to ask a lady abt where a lecture theatre is and she just says she doesn’t want to be disturbed. It was offensive, but when stuff like these happen, I remind myself this : People have various personalities. No one behaves different without a reason, so just IGNORE them, who cares abt them, anyway? U r being nice and that’s what matters!
I completely understand the whole ‘rudeness’ thing. I find it unbearable at times as on the whole I consider myself to be a fairly considerate person.
My major hate is people talking in lectures. I just can’t deal with it. I find it so annoying and repulsive to myself personally, plus I think it is quite offensive to the lecturer taking the class. Some people just don’t get how privileged they are to be at a world class university, heaving world class Professors speak about subjects they are experts on. I got to my lectures to learn, not to hear what the person next to me did on the weekend.
Just today in one of my most difficult subjects where I really try to concentrate there were three groups of people near me who continued to chat through the majority of the lecture.
It is very frustrating because on the whole you can’t really do anything…you just have to grin and bear it – and at least know that you dedication will pay off not only in subject results, but just in your own peace of mind; with the knowledge that you are a respectful person.
Back in First Year, QM1 was the worst subject. At one lecture this cool chick got so angry she jumped up in the middle of the lecturer and said “CAN THE PEOPLE TALKING PLEASE SHUT THE F— UP!!!! IF YOU DON’T WANT TO BE HERE THEN LEAVE” The lecture theater was stunned!
I was like “You go girlfriend!”….but I don’t think I would ever have the guts to do that….but sometimes I really wish I did!!
Also, I have to say – I CANNOT BELIEVE the rudeness of that guy who started talking to someone else when you were talking to him. My eyes were popping out of my head when reading that! I mean WHO DOES THAT TO SOMEONE? That is just soooo bad. You had every right to be offended.
-Sophie
I’ve noted this rudeness too, but sadly I’ve become used to it. I guess it happens. I once forgot to silence my phone in a lecture, too, and it went off – the lecturer glared at me. It was quite embarrassing, since I’d been somewhat asleep before my phone rang.
With regards to the lecturer’s lateness, that’s what your student rep is there for. You’ll have had the whole SSLC representative spiel by now, and if you’re reluctant to bring your concerns directly to the lecturer it’s very acceptable to talk to your rep or send him/her an email, and she/he can talk to the lecturer, keeping you anonymous if you wish.
That’s one of the more interesting points about the University environment – power distance. In secondary school there is substantial distance between teacher and student, whereas in a tertiary institution this distance largely evaporates. Rudeness often prevails because the lecturer doesn’t have disciplinary measures such as sending you to the Vice Principal or writing a bad report available. Thus there’s no fear moderating inconsiderate behaviour.
On that note, there are a few lecturers who have such presence of character that students dare not disrespect their teaching. Whilst in the US, one professor had a novel way of dealing with matters of rudeness. On one such occasion, he asked the offending student to stand up and proceeded to perform a public, verbal crucifixion of sorts. After that the class were as passive as directors of Babcock & Brown Capital.
A more direct approach has also been known to be effective: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hut3VRL5XRE
PXW
Q:
Actually, I didn’t know anything about “SSLC”. After a little searching, it looks like it’s maybe only for schools in the Science faculty.
Regardless, I wouldn’t use a process like that to complain about a lack of courtesy, only something more serious; I’ll just keep fuming quietly.
(He was late again this week, but — wonder of wonders — apologised.)
Sophie:
Yay for That Girl. With more people like her, all lectures would be lovely…
PXW:
I guess you’re right about the power distance; I just didn’t want to believe it. I’d kind of hoped that at university level, people would either want to learn and respect the lecturer or just not come to the class.
Zoë:
The fastest way I’ve found to exit the Copland is to use the door at the front (i.e., bottom) of the theatre, on the left. It takes you up a twisty staircase that ends near the bookroom.
I do love all the mysterious little underground staircases around the Economics building. They remind me a little of the entrances to some of the smaller subway stations in New York — before they put up all the colourful signs.
—Michael
Yes, I’m late with my comment, but what the hell.
I can’t handle rudeness either. At my high school, Year 11 was hellish for the same reason – conversations were so prevalent, loud and annoying that I would hear more about So-and-so’s cousin’s abortion or the sexual problems that Whatsherface was having with her boyfriend than actually hearing the teacher.
By Year 12 a lot of the idiots had dropped out or subtly been shuffled into ‘remedial’ classes, so much smoother sailing.
First felt like Year 11 again. It is an unfortunate problem that university in Australia is something that almost everybody does – anybody who passes VCE seems to think its their god-given right to a CSP place at university and will whine if they don’t get one, whether they actually want to go or not. So there are a lot of time-wasting idiots.
Luckily, it seems that they either grow up a bit or drop out before second year.. because it’s a bit better.
Alas, I have tasted the bitter venon of the species commonly known as ‘arrogant lecturer’. A certain member of staff from the School of Creative Arts was an absolute loser to me once – after a particularly inspiring lecture, I went to introduce myself to him and let him know how much I appreciated his interesting and engaging lecture. He wouldn’t look at me, sort of mumbled, “Ok, whatever” and walked off. Jerk, but luckily there are wonderful lecturers to make up for is (Dr Cassandra Atherton is brilliant).