We all know the feeling. There are three minutes left of class, and it feels like the lecture that will never end. Finally, when the professor says, “The last thing I want to talk about today…” chaos ensues. Students rifle through their bags, putting away notebooks and loudly zipping backpacks. Papers are shuffled, desks are put down and the chattering begins.
This premature pack-up pattern is both rude and disrespectful. Students are trying to take advantage of the learning opportunity, but are unable to do so when it is too loud to hear the professor. Furthermore, packing up while a professor is still speaking is blatantly inconsiderate to the teacher, who is trying to finish a lecture.
As adults, college students should be patient and mature enough to wait to pack up until those last three minutes are over.
Another form of disrespect is shown when students come to class late or leave early. When someone rolls into class halfway through lecture, it interrupts the entire class, making it difficult to focus on what the professor is discussing. Similarly, leaving early is disruptive. Obviously there are outstanding circumstances in which a student might be late or must leave class early, but for the most part, sitting through an hour-and-50-minute lecture should not be very difficult.
The worst offender is the student who shows up late, makes a scene trying to climb over students to get to a seat, pulls out their computer and starts playing a game. In this case, it would have been better for the student, the professor and the rest of the class if the student just hadn’t shown up at all. When you play games or go on Facebook during class you are wasting your time and distracting others.
While it may seem like lectures last forever, the truth is that most are no more than two hours long. As a student, you are paying for this time, and any time spent not learning is wasting money. Furthermore, if you are disrupting the class, you are wasting other people’s money.
We know, it’s Spring Quarter and the weather is nice. But if you can’t handle sitting through an entire class, don’t come to class at all and go hang out on the Quad so the rest of us can learn.
I think I have a pretty good excuse for occasionally leaving class early, especially when I have back-to-back classes (aka, class 2 starts 10 minutes after class 1 ends) that are on completely opposite sides of campus. Leaving my 1st class on time would mean missing out on the quizzes in my 2nd class on Mondays.
I think if a student is going to leave early, they should sit in the back in an aisle seat so as not to disturb fellow students or the professor. Every Monday, I know I have to leave early in order to make it in time to my 2nd class, so I always sit in the back in an aisle seat that day. But of course, other students don’t know my situation, so they might think I’m one of those rude students.