Is sitting in a class your not registered for bad? How bad?

[Gauss44]

I thought that sitting in large lecture halls, like the stats 104 class at Harvard in a packed Auditorium B unregistered, would be quite common. Then I read several articles about students and non-students getting arrested and charged with a felony for "trespassing" and "theft of a service." One such article is titled, "Is it possible to walk into Harvard University and attend a lecture as a non student," on Quora, which I found doing a google search. What do you think of this? Talk about being penalized for trying to educate yourself.

I was thinking about doing that to decide between biostats and regular stats. Now, I guess I'll email the instructor and ask. If he says, "no," I will be really disappointed.

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[Goro]

It's very common, and usually all you need is the permission of the instructor. This is auditing

B ut in a large classroom setting, faculty don't have the time to check the identity of everybody's sitting in a seat.

 

[PreMedStudent55555]

I had a friend sit in my chem lecture as he was planning on taking the course next semester and wanted a sense of what the course was about. He asked the professor permission and he didn't even care.

 

[freedoctor17]

I've had high school students shadow me and come to all my classes to get a sense for the University. I hope I'm not considered an accessory to their crime

It's like test driving a car before you buy it.

 

[Lucca]

Ask the professor beforehand and you’ll likely be in the clear no matter what happens. I don’t know of a single professor who would likely say no unless they were teaching “Secret Illuminati Handshakes for Ivy League (Not you Cornell) Freshmen 101”.

 

[deleted480308]

Yes you have to ask or it could be theft of service

No you are not arrested for trespassing in most states as long as you leave when asked to do so

 

[mtn_dew0verdose]

I had an organic chem professor who was relatively popular amongst premeds so his class was always filled. There were also a handful of auditors, but there were times when people were forced to sit in the aisles when seats were filled, he would then step in and tell such auditors to leave so that those who are registered may sit.

On the other hand, I took a psych course with like 30 people in a 150 person lecture hall. In the middle of the semester, some dude who obviously wasn't part of the class just walked in while the prof was lecturing and took a seat. The prof called him out and told him to leave.

So no, not a big deal at all. I would say just ask the profs permission and just know it's a possibility that you may not always be able to sit in a course due to lack of space.

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[HomeSkool]

To piggyback off @Goro, many (most?) schools require that you request official permission to audit courses, and there may be some cost associated with that. That makes sense if you think about it. The university is selling two things: knowledge and course credit. When you audit, you're getting the knowledge but not the credit, so you may get charged at a lower rate. Some professors may let you sit in the class if you approach them personally, but if you want to do things by the book you may need to make an official request through the school.

 

[freedoctor17]

To piggyback off @Goro, many (most?) schools require that you request official permission to audit courses, and there may be some cost associated with that. That makes sense if you think about it. The university is selling two things: knowledge and course credit. When you audit, you're getting the knowledge but not the credit, so you may get charged at a lower rate. Some professors may let you sit in the class if you approach them personally, but if you want to do things by the book you may need to make an official request through the school.

Auditing at my school isn't charged for but not sure if it's that way at other schools as well.

Edit: just to be clear this is for students. Like the class being audited isn't going to count as part of your credit limit. I have no clue how it is for people coming from outside.