I had to leave Simon Haykin’s lecture on cognitive radio early because I had a certain milestone to meet, and as far as milestones go, this one was the easiest one to get. No homework, quizzes, exams, or committees of professors.
That’s the positive way of looking at it. The more cynical way of perceiving JDE1000H (Ethics in Research) is that of being dragged in for a two hour talk on a late Thursday afternoon on threat of not being able to graduate. Many grad students demonstrated their disapproval by doing their homework, or digging out their laptops and surfing on the campus wireless connection.
Confidence inspiring, right? But at least they may be given the benefit of the doubt, since they were quiet about it. The same couldn’t be said about a few scattered clusters around the lecture hall.
At first I thought, naively, that it was because grad students were a cut above the superset we call undergrads. Obviously, I’ve since revised that notion. Talking in class seems to crop up whenever large groups of people are put together for something not everyone (i.e. most) wants to be there for. It’s just that my grad classes are either small and/or people take learning (or not failing and losing funding) very seriously.
Sometimes I feel that talkers are willfully sabotaging whatever class they’re in by polluting the room with the most banal conversation. The talkers themselves wouldn’t view themselves as malicious, “just bored.” And sometimes, the most damage is caused out of deliberate ignorance followed by stubborn denial.
The lecture hall in the Mining Building has the honour of being the first lecture that I’ve sat in that was built using rows of park benches with slabs of wood bolted on for a writing surface. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Tags: grad, toronto
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