Читать книгу How to Succeed At University--International Edition - Danton O'Day - Страница 26

By definition a lecture is a formal discourse before an audience. Not all lectures acknowledge this definition. The lectures you see and hear will be as diverse as the people who deliver them. They will involve sights, sounds and sometimes touch and smell. They will be exciting and they will be boring. “So what’s new,” you might ask, “I’ve been through all of this at high school!”

Well, there are a lot of differences. First, in your beginning year you will be a member of a large community (first-year students are also called freshers, freshmen or frosh). Many of your classes will contain hundreds of other students in lecture halls as vast as the Carlsbad Caverns. (This may not be true of the smaller universities—at least in some disciplines—but it will probably be true in general since the majority of students go to large universities.) It is only in the later years, as the surviving student numbers dwindle, that you will be in lectures with a reasonable student population. The reduced class size will also influence lecture content. Upper-year classes will often be more interactive, with a greater focus on active learning strategies such as class discussions and student presentations.

Lecture format will vary dramatically from subject to subject. Sometimes the lecturer will talk at you for the entire lecture and continue this for every lecture for the duration of the academic year. Sometimes the sessions will consist of watching pre-recorded lectures, especially in very large classes that have many different sections (the same lectures offered at different times). This saves the lecturer having to repeat the same lecture to several different classes. Recorded lectures may also be made available for viewing online. Sometimes the class will be team-taught—several lecturers will share the teaching of the material with each talking on his or her area of expertise. The lecturer may be an extremely organized and well-prepared speaker or the lecturer may be disorganized and simply ramble on for the lecture period. You will be exposed to a wide range of knowledgeable people with varying abilities and methods to communicate that knowledge. Regardless, you will have a tapestry of experiences that will affect your life and your beliefs for as long as you are here to enjoy them.