Uh. No one is that attentive.
So we haven’t updated in a week. I know, we’re awful people but we are also busy people and never really planned on having lots of visitors, at least so soon. Not that we don’t like you. We’ll try to be better.
Sometimes when I get bored I reminisce about the worst classes I have taken at Northwestern. Whenever I pick my classes, I always make sure there’s at least one I can sleep through at least half the time. Sure, out there exist students with the balls to attend every class, every day, but I find my time is much better spent sleeping in and/or having sex and/or surfing Facebook.
The worst class I took was a new class in a subject I didn’t know jack shit about with two friends. The days that both friends showed up were rare. I don’t get internet in Fisk 217, so any reason I may have had to go to class disappeared. After the midterm I slept through the rest of the classes, went to discussion sections where I sat in the back so the pretentious bastards could run the show, and bombed the final. Still pulled out a B-. Classes at Northwestern aren’t that hard, really.
But I can’t claim to use CTECs as much as I should. Theoretically, each student should read all the CTECs for every class they’re considering, weigh the pros and cons, and pick the best teacher. Uhh, not so much for me. I look at the CTECs, sometimes, but that’s mostly to make sure I won’t be writing fifteen papers each semester or that the prof doesn’t do pop quizzes.
Classes at Northwestern are really a crapshoot. Not that the professors are bad, necessarily — usually they are knowledgeable, helpful, friendly, and yes if you want to come in after hours and be besties with your prof you can usually do so. Doesn’t change the fact that 50 percent of Northwestern students avoid any sort of active participation in class. Discussions get awkward when only two or three people in the room decide to talk. For such a reputably intellectual university, it’s shocking how many times the TA stands at the front of the room answering her own questions.
I’ve been at the school two years. It’s not like I’ve never been in a class where the students were engaged and interested. That does happen, just not as often as I wish it would. Honestly, it seems like there’s almost peer pressure not to speak up in class.
(The 300+ level classes are usually a lot better about this, obviously.)
While we’re on the subject, since my experience at Northwestern is limited to 24 classes: either in the comments or in an email to crunkcounseling@yahoo.com, let me know what is the worst class you have ever taken at NU and why?
-Sloane
Filed under: nu is not the shit | 2 Comments
Tags: classes, CTECs, intellectualism, internet, mistakes
this was one of the dumbest and most pointless things i have ever read. see you later.
Agreed with poster number 1. No one every says NU is an intellectual school- its one of the main weaknesses. And you simultaneously ridicule those who do participate (“pretentious bastards”) and complain more people don’t. You’re a bit of a waste of space, from the sound of it.
I’ve been in sections where it was just me and the TA talking the entire time- I’d stay quiet and hope someone else would talk, that’d go for about 20 painful minutes, then I’d break and have something to say. It’’s not any more fun for me than the being bored and quiet is for everyone else. On the other hand, sections where everyone is involved in lively debate make me love classes.
And you’re seriously too lazy to read CTECS? Wow.