Lectures can be some of the interesting aspects of university life. Here are some characters you're bound to run into during your uni career!
Lecturers are an integral part of university life and pretty soon into your course you’ll find your favourite lecturer, who is beloved by all due to their ability to explain the incomprehensible. Whether you have lectures 3 times a day of 3 times a week, you’re guaranteed to be able to fit you lecturer into one of these categories.
1. Talks too fast
I don’t know whether they’re passionate about their topic, nervous or just trying to finish on time but this lecturer talks at super speed. They whizz through the slides so fast that it’s impossible to keep up and you end up hopelessly confused within minutes.
2. Just reads the slides
You settle in for an hour of learning, hopeful for some imaginative analogies to explain whichever confusing topic is timetabled for today. Prepare to be disappointed, this lecturer apparently has no extra knowledge on the topic other than what’s written on the slides. I could have stayed in bed and had the same level of knowledge. On the plus side it does mean that you don’t need to make any extra notes.
3. Easily side tracked
This lecturer starts strongly, covering basic points and adding detail. But then things all go downhill, they start wading off topic, taking the lecture down a side track about their aunts’ cousin and before you know it your lecture about fractures turns into an anecdote about playing tennis in the rain! Good luck following this one.
4. Has SO MANY SLIDES
As the dedicated student you are, you download the slides before the lecture begins, ready to make notes. That’s when the dread sets in because you’ve realised the lecturer is somehow planning to squeeze 150 slides into a 60-minute lecture. Why do they do this? How on earth are we going to get through all of these slides in an hour?
5. Turns up late
Nothing irks you more than turning up to a lecture on time when the lecturer then fails to turn up for the next 15 minutes. Some daring souls get up and leave while others start emailing the lecturer asking if they’ll turn up. You just sit there looking at the clock thinking you could have had an extra 20 minutes in bed.
6. Runs over
This is one of the most painful lectures. When the hour chimes, you see laptops get shut, notes put away and jumpers put on as collectively students zone out and start inching towards the doors. This lecturer will take no notice of these less than subtle signs, and instead will continue to talk and talk and talk despite facing an increasing hostile room of students.
7. Stickler for time
Naturally, especially in 9am lectures, some students will inevitably walk in late. This lecturer seems to get inordinate amounts of pleasure from pointing at these students, saying ‘there are seats at the front’, and silently waiting until they have sat down and unpacked before resuming with a pointed ‘now we’re all here’.
8. Picks on people
One of the benefits of being a university student is being able to blend into the crowd. Some lecturers, however, seem to enjoy pointing at the poor soul whose chosen that moment to take a nap, and ask them a convoluted question. Cue everyone else avoiding eye contact with the lecturer at all costs for fear of being put on the spot.
9. The pacer
Almost worse than the question answerer is the lecturer who appears to be trying to increase the step count on his fitbit. This lecturer will actually pace up and down the stairs, staring at the people in the back row. See students everywhere flicking off the online shopping back onto their notes in case he catches a glimpse of their laptop.
10. The Dream Lecturer
Then, seemingly out of nowhere, you get a blissful hour. The lecturer is set up ready when you arrive, flows clearly from slide to slide and finishes a minute early after a beautifully planned summary slide. Its an hour of education worth your university fees, you leave feeling secure in your knowledge of the subject. Typically you will probably only have this lecturer once.
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