Academics Part I: Lectures

As promised, here begins my newest foray into the world that is Cambridge academics! You might recall that I gave a brief overview back on the first day of lectures in a post titled "Academic Overview," but now having gone through a full term of Cambridge academics, my perspectives have certainly changed since, and I'm now going to share them with you here! Before I dive in, I want to say with regards to organization that I will be dividing up the discussion into multiple parts, not only so that they are easier to read and digest, but also so that I can dive more into detail for each aspect.

With that organization in mind, let's dive into our first topic: lectures (note the terminology: Cambridge students tend to say "lecture" rather than "class")! My initial impression of lectures was that there exists a significant separation between lecturers and students i.e., there is almost no interaction between students and lecturerers and that the lecture hall atmosphere was somehow much more formal. Whereas MIT professors and lecturers often attempt to engage the students on a generally more informal basis to gauge how the students are understanding the material, I didn't think the lecturers at Cambridge did much of that. Lectures were more of a one-way street.

This impression has certainly held up for the most part, though the degree of formality I expected does not really exist. Students at Cambridge are not that much different from those at MIT: during boring lecturers, people head straight to their phones. Tired students, like that dude above, fall asleep during lecture. Some lecturers have attempted to engage us by asking us questions about the material and/or our understanding of what has just been discussed. However, students are very disinclined to participate, and those that do often stick out like sore thumbs. Thus, there is certainly more of a distance between students and lecturers than at MIT.

At MIT, there are two types of lecturers: those who provide notes and those who do not. Those who provide notes often provide the slides of a presentation upon which students can take notes. For those who do not provide notes, there are often detailed notes available on the course page. Cambridge lecturers, however, generally fall into this quasi-gray category where they do provide notes, but they have parts missing from them. Thus, it is up to the student to come to the lectures so that he/she can fill them in. Generally though, lecturers will release the filled-in version of the notes later on, but I did have one lecturer who did release the notes, except with none of the missing parts filled in. Consequently, there is certainly more of an impetus to attend lecture no matter how bad the lecturer is. Of course, you could also rely on friends to provide you notes, but I personally wouldn't rely on doing that all the time unless you are doing them (academic) favors as well.

Because of this distance between students and lecturers, lecturers are not really that inclined to make sure that everyone is paying attention. While I have had several lecturers at MIT who would make sure that people were paying attention, lecturers here at Cambridge couldn't care less I feel. Since the learning is more independent, it really is up to you whether or not you want to pay attention during lecture. As long as you are not being disruptive, the lecturer will just continue.

On a final note, I should note that Cambridge has no problems scheduling 9 am lectures. I thought having two such lectures a week was bad enough, but I had four a week (!) this term. With six modules coming up next term, I won't be surprised if I'll be waking up for 9 am lectures every day, something that I would have found unthinkable at MIT. Oh well. Great room with not as great scheduling. You win some, and you lose some. Neither Cambridge is perfect. :)

Well, that's all I have to say regarding lectures! Stay tuned for my next post regarding supervisions!