Is anyone here VERY dissatisfied with college lectures?

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So there are a few things that really disturb me:

1: Office hours. As a result of my Asperger's Syndrome, it takes a long time for me to jump to conclusions, since my inductive reasoning is rather poor. As a result, professors will often get annoyed at how long I take to get ANYTHING, and then this often causes me discontent.

2: Lectures in general. They're designed for NTs, and even then, many NTs hate lectures. For Aspies, it's worse. Why CAN"T professors just POST LECTURES ONLINE SO THAT WE CAN REWIND? Honestly, I get lost easily and then have to rewind but since that isn't possible in a classroom setting, I really get FRUSTRATED and don't understand the material. Plus, lectures need to cover things OUTSIDE of the textbook.

3: Lack of friends to work on the problems with. I think that's a given.

Hi Simfish

I was holding back posting a reply, 'cause I'm is Australia and it is a while since I was at uni (economics/accounting major).

Aus may be different from USA but my professors always said that lectures are intended to add additional info to the course material that we were supposed read to prepare from ourselves prior to the lecture. They would get pissed off if we didn't do the reading BEFORE the lecture. They said we were lazy if we relied only on lectures.

I remember one of them, to make a point did not cover anything examinable in the lectures. We were supposed to get that from the books. Incidently, he was one of the department heads and was formerly at Princeton. He said we were getting almost the identical course that he gave at Princeton and the same expectations.

Can you read up on the lecture subject prior to the lecture?

If your text doesn't cover everything, try a different one from the library. If your professor will not sugest another book to look at, look up what texts are prescribed at other colleges. They all cover pretty much the same coursework.

Also, we used to be able get copies of old exam papers from the library. If you can, get them and read them now. Examiners are very unimaginative and the same questions come up over and over. You will recognise lecture material that was covered in past exams.

Last edited by blackduck on 22 Aug 2006, 1:51 am, edited 1 time in total.

Sometimes its because they are doing research and they have "copyright" material they don't want other academics to see. Other times they are just richard craniums (do you have that expression in the States?).

Try not to piss any off. I came accross one or 2 who would fail you just because they didn't like you, but most were good.

I have found recording my class lectures helps me. Of course you have to make sure it is okay with the professor first. I have had some that won't let me. My current instructors are okay with it.

At a liberal arts college I went to I was unable to keep up with what was important. The result was a drop in my GPA. The technical college I currently attend is easier for me. Some instructors end up printing off the power point outline so we can add notes we think are important. Other instructors just teach what is important to know in order to pass the Radiologic Technology registry.

To keep this in order. I color code most things for my clinical notebook. I have found the colors help me stay organized the whole quarter.

maybe an online course would be more suitable for you?

that may solve problems 1 and 2

Some professors and teachers I've had lectured in heavily inflected, non-complete sentences and used a lot of body language. In some cases, exam questions were based on what the teacher felt was important, and, as a result, you had to pay close attention to HOW they said things. If it is not too much stress, and if you do better in social interaction in a one-on-one setting than in a classroom setting or group setting, schedule a meeting with the teacher or professor. In such a metting, might may be able to get a better idea of what things she thinks is important (and, hence, what to know for the quiz or test.) That's what I did for Sociology 100 last semester. After my meeting with the prof, I reversed an F into a B because I then knew what to study for.

On the other hand, some professors and teacher do give their lectures in monotone (whether they have asperger's or not) and use complete sentences. There are also teachers who test you on sheer book knowledge rather than what they feel is important. You can always change your schedule. If you were in the US I could recommend a website like RateMyProfessor.com. That is an excellent resource for finding about which professors to take classes with, although the NT responses sometimes contradict what I want in a professor (no personal stories that i can't relate to, please!)

I can't multitask my eyes and ears. I can't read and listen, watch and hear, whatever. But one thing I can do is record stuff in my head so I can play it back later, though at the time I am recording I cannot actually process any of the information or attempt original thought or I loose whatever it was I was supposed to be recording. (This is my version of getting side tracked: thinking abut what is being said or shown.) I used to have to choose what to record. I would record just the audio from lectures in my head before I got a real voice recorder but then I missed the stuff that was up on the screen or I would record the stuff on the screen but I would loose the audio stream. But over the years I have learned to fake multitasking. Typically, I read the book before I go into class, then when I show up for lecture I set up a voice recorder and free myself to focus on just the on screen media. When class was done I would replay the audio file on the voice recorder to overlay it onto the visual media file in my head and voila... all information received. So I get all the class material well enough to recreate the course myself, but the primary problem I have is going back over it to pull out all the important stuff. I think the only tests I have ever done well on were those that had published question and answer files. I passed two clasees just recording those files and got perfect scores on the exams but I never showed up for class or cracked the book. Instead I took that time to attend more interesting classes and resold the unopened books at full cost (we were required to purchase the books to remain enrolled in the class). That was great but no all classes are so forward with their materials. For those that are not, I am still struggling to figure out what is important and how to prioritize and where to dig deeper to start building new information and find all those indirect or inferred conclusions and information. I am passing purely by luck as I have no idea on what patterns my chances for success are based.

Mind you, I am a university senior and everyone thinks I am smart so I have a sort of reputation to live up to... I will fall short soon enough. I just don't know how much longer I can survive before not knowing what's going on really catches up and bonks me over the head. I am afraid I will be in grad school when I get that headache and have to go back to "Study Skills 097" and "College Success 098".

I agree. With the exception of a few genuinely brilliant lecturers, lectures have usually been sleepy time for me.

What I did was skip as many lectures I could without getting booted from the course (especially the early morning ones), and spend my time in the library - reading up on the lecture subject and quite a bit more as well.

I'm pretty lucky, in that at my uni {in Aus, mind you} most of my lectures are recorded - all the lecturers use a microphone and have it recorded in mp3 format which is then uploaded, together with the powerpoint slides, to our online forums where it can be accessed really easily and whenever needed. It's like this for all classes, only certain areas don't do it {namely engineering} and those classes with small numbers. Makes everything alot easier and if you can't make it to class then you can just watch/listen to the lecture online!

I'm kind of like Astarael in a sense. While my profs don't record their lectures, they usually have summaries of them online. In chem, for example, we're supposed to print up the lecture notes the day before and bring them to class. This way, we have a lot of the larger amounts of text and we don't have to write nearly as much when the prof is talking. However, we do have to write in certain things, like examples and problems that we work in class, but it's not that bad.

In another one of my classes, we're supposed to read the chapter in the textbook ahead of time and formulate questions to make sure we get answered in the following days' lecture. The prof for this class writes everything that we need to write down on the whiteboard (it's a fairly small class, about thirty or thirty-five students) and he makes his powerpoint presentations available online for anyone who is in his class (these are mostly for pictures and visual respresentations of what we're covering).

One thing that I found that sometimes helps is taking notes in your text book (but NOT if you plan to sell them back when you're done). I did this throughout basic chemistry last year and it allowed me not to write down everything my teacher was saying and just the important stuff because I would follow along in the book where he was lecturing from (he never lectured directly from the book, but there was always a correlation between what he was saying and the book). It was kind of nice not having to write down everything. I also got into the habit of always asking for help right when I needed it because if I didn't ask then and there (or right after class), then I would likely forget.

I concur. Actually, I am able to record my lectures on my MacBook, so it isn't a problem anymore, really. Except for one class last week wherein my real professor had a family emergency and required a substitute while she attended to the problem. THAT professor was a TOTAL JERK (see story First he comes in YELLING, then says we don't need to take notes since he was going to hand out a typed copy of the lecture, (that is a good thing, I thought), and that all we needed to do was pay attention. So I put my computer away and get ready to pay attention. Of course, I do not "pay attention" the same way as most people, so he yells at me and rips his notes out of my hands and asks me if I am an "idiot," and didn't I hear him politely say to pay attention? It was bad. I still haven't read the notes he gave me since he made it PERFECTLY CLEAR that I wasn't supposed to, and no amount of cajoling on my parent's part will convince me otherwise.

But I digress.

I dislike lectures because it is too much auditory input to process all at once. But because students like to cheat, professors at my school feel that to curb this trend they don't post anything online but extra readings and homework assignments. But they don't mind that I record the lectures, I just had to sign a waiver saying I wouldn't post them anywhere. So I listen to them on my iPod afterwards. It still doesn't solve the notes part, but if I listen to something, I can usually remember it better, anyway.

Most Univesties provide their professors with space on their university's domain, and it's usually divided up by department. The best thing to do is to see what has been posted there -- because, even though your professor may not have put anything up online, another professor who taught the same class last semester, may have something on their website.