Class Skipping Culture IN Medical School

[pianola]

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Unless your profs drop tons of extra information that's going to be tested during lecture (doubtful for most places) it's a waste of time to watch, listen or attend lecture. It does seem quite a few of my classmates listen to the lecture out of guilt or something, but time is to precious to be guilted into wasting IMO.

Guilt is a powerful motivator 😀.

Yeah maybe it's just my school. See, for any given module we'll have maybe 3 "recommended" books and no way to know which one best fits the course outline (usually none of them are particularly great). Usually there aren't other "packets" or "handouts" as supplements aside from Powerpoints, although sometimes there are. HOWEVER, we are *guaranteed* that our tests will (1) not cover anything outside of the lecture material and (2) that the quantity/content of test questions will reflect the quantity/content of the lectures.

So, you can see where my study habits come from...

Also, as an observation, I think it's fair to bear in mind that the people who might be frequenting SDN on a Tuesday morning/afternoon are not the ones sitting in class...

 

[kevster2001]

It's because the material in medicalschool is not particularly difficult to understand. There are no abstract concepts, complicated theorums etc. Everything you need to know can be summarized nicely into powerpoint slides and syllabus packets. Professors often lecture at a much slower pace that what students can do by themselves so a lot of students do not feel the need to attend the lectures.

Of course attendance is also directly related to the speaking skills of the lecturer. We have a few profs that are able to fill a lot of seats because a) they are great and reallyengages the students with humor and enthusiasm b) mostly use pictures for thier slides and have memorized what they want to say. I'll let you decide which one is more important for attendance =p

 

[venacontracta]

You have no idea how fast some of these lectures can go. For the most part, they all go through material at such a rapid pace that it's nearly impossible to internalize all the new terms/concepts while you're sitting there.

Professors often lecture at a much slower pace that what students can do by themselves so a lot of students do not feel the need to attend the lectures.

😕

 

[Siggy]

Some professors talk fast, some talk slow. Often painfully slow.

 

[pianola]

Some professors talk fast, some talk slow. Often painfully slow.

So true. And some speak with incomprehensible accents. And some don't really know how to explain ANYTHING. And some waste time with demonstrations or chit-chat that are totttttalllly irrelevant.

There are any number of reasons to skip lectures.

Which is not to say that I skip lectures regularly, haha 😉 I'm just saying, I understand why other people might.