Rant #2: Pay Attention!!

Nobody here ever pays attention in class. Half the people never even show up for the lectures unless the professor takes attendance, and then even if they do show up all they do is talk the whole time. When I was still registered for Aerodynamics the professor had to stop and ask everybody to pay attention a few times. And many students bring their laptops to class

This place is so different than back home -- at least relative to engineering courses. There is little, if any, homework, almost no midterms, and the finals exams account for 50% to 80% of the final grade. Few classes need to buy textbooks; instead the professors create a whole semesters' worth of powerpoint lecture notes that can be purchased and bound at the library.

Also, the class schedules are messed up. There are no Monday-Wednesday-Friday classes that start at exactly the same time and are always in the same lecture hall. Oh no, you'll get a your first lecture on Wednesday in one lecture hall then the second one on Thursday in a completely different location and an entirely different time. How does that make any sense? Wouldn't it just be easier to keep it consistent?

And in the very rare event that there is a midterm, it's not held during the regular class hours. Instead it will be in the middle of the day on some random day of the week. What if I have another class at that same time?

And there's a two week period between the end of classes and the time exams start, I think. Why can't they just have the exams right away so I could have a whole month of travelling? What am I going to do for a whole two weeks while I wait for school to finish? Study? Are you kidding?

Ok, so I got a bit off track with the whole paying attention thing. Oh well ... I suppose I'm in class right now and not paying attention either. :o)