<p>but don’t you think you can find that out by talking to others, reading rating sites, etc? And when you realized it, did you walk out on the class?</p>
<p>“can you really tell you will “hate” a class from one half an hour of dropping in?”</p>
<p>At times? Heck yeah, and there is no substitute for your own judgment. Talking to others can work at small colleges and within your own major; not for electives at big colleges. I used the ratings to decide what to shop – if the professor is roundly panned, I probably wouldn’t even visit. But among the ones with decent to good reviews, there’s a wide variation in style. The professor-student relationship is just like any other human relationship – sometimes there’s fantastic chemistry, sometimes there isn’t. Then, of course, there are professors new to the institution (or new to the field) who have no ratings or reputation yet, and might be awesome or terrible.</p>
<p>“can one really expect to negotiate an entire college experience without getting through a class that one finds one doesn’t love?”</p>
<p>Of course not – some problems will be unavoidable. But when there’s a choice, why not take the better choice? What is the value in spending a semester in a class that fits your needs to some extent, when you could fulfill the same requirement in a class that fits you superbly? Is it supposed to build character?</p>
<p>I don’t think I ever left a small seminar halfway through the first class; I can’t remember visiting one I didn’t like. I very often came and went from lectures on the Monday and Tuesday of shopping period. So did everyone else. When I was 100% committed to the class and in love with the professor, I didn’t care if people left from the back of the room. I mean, so what? It didn’t hurt me.</p>
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<p>First day is when you get the syllabus and when the professor goes over the structure of the class. I can’t imagine just dropping by for a visit on the first day when the prof’s trying to get a million bookkeeping items taken care of and not having it be incredibly disruptive… What’s the point of the first class, then? You can’t waste an entire lecture waxing poetic about your subject matter because people are waltzing in and out of your lecture hall like you’re a zoo attraction.</p>
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<p>Maybe it’s because the professor knew that with their first thirty minutes of class being Grand Central Station, that they weren’t going to accomplish anything anyhow, so they decided not to say anything important…!</p>
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I really think you’re exaggerating the effect of this, assuming (as I do) that the large majority of the students present would be committed to the class and sitting through the whole of it. So you talk to them, engage them, and ignore the traffic at the periphery. Big deal.</p>
<p>Is it really that this state of affairs would be so horribly disruptive, or is it more about the injury to the professor’s dignity (as the last five words of the quoted text above seem to hint)?</p>
<p>I see nothing wrong with what the student did, unless he was somehow unusually disruptive. It’s no big deal to quietly enter or leave, particularly if it’s a large lecture. I’m amazed the professor is barring late students from class during the first week. I think the professor’s email was far ruder than the student’s late arrival.</p>
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<p>But if you’re in a class and none of this is happening then that tells you something about how the rest of the quarter will go. In my case, 30 minutes into the class nothing had been said that was relevant to anything, except something about we had to pay for something and him not wanting to have to make change.</p>
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<p>I actually don’t remember if I left early or not, it was a long time ago.</p>
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<p>In my case you’re giving the professor more credit than he deserves. I don’t remember people coming and going, he was just someone who liked to talk and didn’t say anything.</p>
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<p>I agree.</p>
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<p>I do think it’s a big deal. I remember calculating how much my classes cost per session and I was grateful that my parents could afford that and I made it a point not to miss any. And I didn’t, until senior year when I had some minor surgery that made it unavoidable. I don’t like the concept that it’s ok to miss classes, or to waltz in and out unless there is a true emergency of some sort.</p>
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<p>I’m not as much talking about it being disruptive to the professor <em>during</em> the lecture (though it’s still really rude). Honestly, if someone can’t give a moderately decent presentation while half the desks are on fire, then they’re probably not worth their salt as a professor. </p>
<p>I gave a talk to some high schoolers once where a fistfight started to erupt between two unruly students, and their teacher (I was a guest lecturer) gave them each a whispered ‘talking-to’ in the room as I gave my presentation… Everyone was craning their necks, trying to hear what the teacher was yelling at the two students for. Even <em>I</em> didn’t want to pay attention to me. THAT was distracting, but I finished my lecture, and everyone learned what I wanted them to learn.</p>
<p>It’s when I give important information at the beginning of a class, and then five minutes later, another group walks in and I have to give the important information again, and then another group walks in ten minutes after that and I have to give the important information AGAIN… Then I can’t get anything accomplished. The same thing happens all the time in meetings. That, or people higher up the ranks than I am will sit there on their Blackberries and iPhones, only looking up every ten minutes to ask a question that I’ve already explained the answer to, in detail, with full-color diagrams.</p>
<p>It’s the fact that the professor’s going to have to go over material once at the beginning of class and then once more after the shopping period because people have finally decided to take the class after skipping the first hour of the course… That’s the part that’s really disruptive.</p>
<p>“I remember calculating how much my classes cost per session and I was grateful that my parents could afford that and I made it a point not to miss any.”</p>
<p>I do that, too, which is why I didn’t want to waste any on classes that weren’t the very best the institution had to offer. It’s a bigger deal to have a first session with traffic in the back of the hall than it is to waste an entire semester with some newbie professor who turns out to be a dud?</p>
<p>"Then I’m really glad my kids didn’t go there. "</p>
<p>Seriously? Shopping period is enough for you to write off Harvard, Yale, Bryn Mawr, Haverford, Brown, Barnard and Amherst (probably more, that’s what I’ve found so far)?</p>
<p>“It’s the fact that the professor’s going to have to go over material once at the beginning of class and then once more after the shopping period because people have finally decided to take the class after skipping the first hour of the course”</p>
<p>Says who? Some professors may choose to do this, but they don’t have to, and most don’t. If you join the class after the first meeting, you’re responsible for the material that’s already been covered. In a big lecture class, they may be taped, or you get notes from a classmate. At any rate, it’s on the student to catch up.</p>
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<p>Why should you think that you can depend on anonymous evaluations to figure out whether the prof will be good for you, not for others? In high school, S1 had a teacher who was hated by many, many students. Yet, when he graduated, S1 said that teacher taught him more than anyone else at the school. My Ss like to make up their own mind, not have it made for them. Not everyone posts they syllabi on the website. Heck, some of my S’s profs did not even have syllabi.Not every student clicks with the same teachers.
S2 shopped a course that originally was intended for a maximum of 35 but ballooned to 275. Needless to say, the first week was hectic as the instructor had to hire new TFs and the college had to find another bigger room.
Not every student can be accommodated. According to the Yale Daily News, some courses had a cap of 15 but were shopped by up to 80 students. Which means that a great many of these students must have gone to another class as soon as they realized their chance of being among the happy few was small; which also mean they probably walked into some classes a bit late. Better miss half a class than miss a whole one in order to stand in a corridor together with 65 other students out of some mistaken sense of decorum!</p>
<p>I agree with Hanna (and Marite also mentions this) that I would not entirely rely on what other students had to say about a course or teacher. I mean even when picking out a college, it is good to garner opinions from many current students and perspectives but it is most important to visit first hand to see what works and fits for you. With a course, it is a personal thing if the student is going to connect with the material, the format, the teacher, etc. It doesn’t matter if Joe Schmoe relates to the material or teacher if you don’t. I think one of the beauties of the educational experience my kid had at Brown was that every student in the class really wanted to be there. It affected the entire experience for everyone, let alone on one’s own personal level. Someone upthread mentioned what was so terrible to have to have a not so great teacher or course in college…but that need not have to be (unless it is some requirement where there is no other option). My kid loved her courses and I credit that in part to not only an open curriculum, but shopping period itself. </p>
<p>(again, just commenting on the notion of shopping period, but it is unclear to me if NYU/Stern has such a process and so that changes the situation for the student in the first post)</p>
<p>Well, I decided to go to the source, at least to the extent that I can do so here on CC. </p>
<p>I asked on the Stern forum if there is any kind of “shopping” policy during the first week at Stern and if so, should the professor in question have been well aware of it.</p>
<p>This is the response I got from a CC member:</p>
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<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/new-york-university/878253-does-stern-have-established-shopping-period.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/new-york-university/878253-does-stern-have-established-shopping-period.html</a></p>
<p>If this is accurate, the student in question took his chances in coming to this class one hour late, and the professor had every right to ask him to leave and come back another time. The student’s subsequent e-mail chastising the professor was out of line imo.</p>
<p>^^^ That was my assumption as well, having had a kid go to NYU. She did not have a shopping period like her sister had at Brown. My NYU kid had to attend the classes she officially registered for. If she was interested in a class that was full, she could email the professor in advance about coming to the first class, etc. This is in contrast to my Brown kid who could attend a variety of classes during shopping period before making her final commitments.</p>
<p>The NYU kid in this instance, could have contacted the professor in advance and explained that he was registered for another class during this same time block but could he visit this professor’s class as he was looking into possibly doing a drop/add and wanted to see the class first.</p>
<p>^^^ That would have been, as they say in the business world, a best practice.</p>
<p>I’m an NYU student and we discussed this in one of my classes. I pointed out that the student was an MBA candidate (his email signature indicates this) and people’s feelings shifted upon hearing that.</p>
<p>The university my kids attend does not have an official “shopping period,” and neither did the school I attended decades ago. Nonetheless, checking out various classes during the first week of school is standard practice at both places. It does not need to be stated explicitly in any handbook. Shopping is the most efficient way to make a decision about classes and it’s no big deal. I have no idea why this professor made such an issue of it. (FWIW, my professor husband would be more bothered by emails asking permission beforehand than if kids just left early.)</p>
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<p>So you didn’t read the same article the rest of us read? He wasn’t bothered by the idea of shopping; he was bothered by people going in and out of his classroom as he was trying to lecture. You really don’t understand why that would bother someone? Really?</p>
<p>I mean, really? You have no idea? Just trying to clarify your position here.</p>
<p><a href=“FWIW,%20my%20professor%20husband%20would%20be%20more%20bothered%20by%20emails%20asking%20permission%20beforehand%20than%20if%20kids%20just%20left%20early.”>quote</a>
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<p>What a rarity: An educated adult who prefers others to be rude rather than polite. That’s a great lesson for our young people. “Show up late. Leave early. I don’t care. Just don’t bother me with an email!” Lovely.</p>
<p>In my opinion, when there is no formal shopping period, then get permission to attend the class, or at the very least, do not show up half way through it. It seems to me that this was not the norm at Stern or the professor would not have been bothered. If it was the common practice (a la schools that have formal shopping periods), it would have been expected then. </p>
<p>By the way, I have taught college and it is distracting as a teacher to have someone enter half way into the class session. Imagine if many did it, and not just one.</p>
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<p>What does that have to do with the price of tea in China? Apparently at NYU, this is not the standard practice, either officially or unofficially, at least as it applies to coming and going at will. I find it interesting how many people are trying to extrapolate their own experiences, or the practice at their childrens’ schools, to this one. If it was standard practice at Stern, the professor would not have been fazed by it. Obviously, that is NOT the case here. Every college has its own culture; you have to view events on individual campuses in the context of that culture, not the culture of another university.</p>
<p>Post 95 seems to imply that at NYU, shopping is standard for undergraduates. Am I wrong?</p>
<p>Soozie: I am sure profs are annoyed if students come in late or leave early after shopping period; but during shopping period, it is accepted practice that students check out classes that meet at the same time. This means that some will drop by merely to pick up a syllabus, others will stay for a while and still others will stay for the duration of the class.
S1 attended a college where there was pre-registration (unlike Harvard) but still had to scramble for appropriate classes during the first week, as did many other students. I don’t know if he stayed for the whole hour of the classes he shopped. But I would not blame him if, after the first 15 minutes, he realized the class was not for him and he shopped another one. </p>
<p>Perhaps those profs who object to this practice can post their syllabus online (not all do, even in this day and age) and make it clear that no lateness will be allowed, including during shopping period.</p>