Can you just walk in to a university lecture in your country

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Re: Can you just walk in to a university lecture in your country

Postby loqu » 2014-09-24, 22:06

You can do it here. The price students pay is to do the exam and get a score, but the lectures are for free.
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Re: Can you just walk in to a university lecture in your country

Postby vijayjohn » 2014-09-24, 22:39

linguoboy wrote:You guess?

Yeah, I guess. You can't assume that Asians don't go into anything else or that we consider that our motivation for going to college just because that's been your experience.
How many of the Asians you know are majoring in liberal arts or history rather than medicine or engineering?

A lot - in fact, more and more of us. Medicine and engineering may still be the most common fields for Asians to pursue, and the social pressure for us to go into medicine, engineering, or law is heavy. For that reason, the amount of support we get from our parents to go into anything else is highly variable. Yet I see medicine and engineering as belonging more to our parents' generation than to ours, because a lot of us realize that we just aren't cut out for either of those fields and will not be happy or successful pursuing them, and even in our parents' generation, there are lots of people who didn't go into either of those fields. In our grandparents' generation, at least in Kerala (probably in India in general), medicine and engineering were anomalies rather than the norm. I can think of exactly one Asian on this forum who is pursuing either of them.

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Re: Can you just walk in to a university lecture in your country

Postby TheStrayCat » 2014-09-25, 3:37

In Ukraine, all classes in our university were divided into lectures and practice classes. I guess the same is true for all or almost all main Ukrainian universities.

So, a practice class resembles a school lesson, just held for a smaller group of people (usually less than 25, but I know an example when there were only 4 throughout the whole semester). Walking in and listening to the class is almost impossible. Unless the group is new to the professor, he will spot an outsider without fail. Besides, they often ask random students to answer questions or come to the blackboard, which surely would make that person feel unconfortable.

In a lecture class, it's formally not allowed, but generally possible. However, if the professor knows everyone well enough (and this is a rare case, because lectures are delivered to 50 students at least, and many professors care only about finishing their work ASAP), and finds out that someone else has come, he may ask them to leave the room. I remember one day during my first year when our friend from a neighboring Physics department came to listen to a lecture in Mathematical Analysis, and was quickly spotted at the first check. He was warned and asked not to come to our class anytime in the future.

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Re: Can you just walk in to a university lecture in your country

Postby Lada » 2014-09-25, 7:31

It's not possible in Russia because you must have student ID of the university you come in, otherwise security won't let you in. After terror attacks security in schools and universities is a must if I'm not mistaken.

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Re: Can you just walk in to a university lecture in your country

Postby vijayjohn » 2014-09-25, 8:27

But what if you're a student in a particular university? Could you go into any class you want to go to in that university, even if you're not signed up for the class?

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Re: Can you just walk in to a university lecture in your country

Postby Car » 2014-09-25, 11:18

In Germany, you have to register and often pay a certain sum. In some cases, that might not be necessary. Of course many lectures have so many students that the prof won't even notice. In some lectures, you have to sign at the beginning of the lecture, but usually not and there are no controls of your ID, so you can. Usually, a student will be busy enough with his own studies and lecture halls often are more than full, so that limits it.

As for non-students, they have to register and might have to pay. Some universities offer some lectures as part of "senior studies" where old people attend the lectures, but nothing more.

Apart from that, some universities offer studium generale.
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Re: Can you just walk in to a university lecture in your country

Postby voron » 2014-09-25, 12:21

In Belarus you can normally join any class, whether at your university or at a different one, as long as you sit quietly. At my uni people would sometimes bring their friends to a class, just because it was a taught by a charismatic professor and people wanted to see his/her quirks. The professors usually wouldn't mind.

I attended Serbian and Polish classes at the Philological University while not being a student there, and since the Serbian class was small (just 3-4 regular students) I actually became an active participant and eventually started doing homeworks and had them checked by the professor.

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Re: Can you just walk in to a university lecture in your country

Postby mōdgethanc » 2014-09-25, 15:59

It's not too hard to sit in on a lecture, but that will probably get you kicked out of a smaller class like a seminar, where enrolment is limited. It's possible to audit classes (register in and sit in on them without receiving a grade) but I don't know how much this costs.
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Re: Can you just walk in to a university lecture in your country

Postby linguoboy » 2014-09-25, 16:26

vijayjohn wrote:
linguoboy wrote:You guess?

Yeah, I guess. You can't assume that Asians don't go into anything else or that we consider that our motivation for going to college just because that's been your experience.

I'm not assuming either thing. I just find it incredible that you only reluctantly concede that maybe this is a factor when there is no shortage of Asians out there who will tell you quite bluntly that it is.

Of course, the category of "Asian" is a granfalloon of the first order. Maybe the mix is different at your school, but here it's primarily South Asians (esp. Pakistanis and North Indians) and Mainland Chinese. The Chinese in particular are definitely very concerned with earning power.

vijayjohn wrote:
How many of the Asians you know are majoring in liberal arts or history rather than medicine or engineering?

A lot - in fact, more and more of us. Medicine and engineering may still be the most common fields for Asians to pursue, and the social pressure for us to go into medicine, engineering, or law is heavy. For that reason, the amount of support we get from our parents to go into anything else is highly variable. Yet I see medicine and engineering as belonging more to our parents' generation than to ours, because a lot of us realize that we just aren't cut out for either of those fields and will not be happy or successful pursuing them, and even in our parents' generation, there are lots of people who didn't go into either of those fields. In our grandparents' generation, at least in Kerala (probably in India in general), medicine and engineering were anomalies rather than the norm. I can think of exactly one Asian on this forum who is pursuing either of them.

You can think of only one Asian on a forum aimed at freaks who love learning languages who's pursuing a major that has nothing to do with learning languages? That's strangely unimpressive.

I don't argue that the proportions are changing, but even you admit that Asians are still overrepresented in certain fields. My point is that these are precisely those fields with the most reliable return on investment. That's not a distribution one would expect if, as you say, their primary motivation was simply love of education and remuneration was a distant second, or of no concern at all.

I really don't think that, when it comes to university, White people and Asians are as different in their motivations as you make them out to be. Even though I was overstating the short shrift given to love of learning in this country to make a satirical point, I really don't think it's that far from the truth.
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Re: Can you just walk in to a university lecture in your country

Postby Lada » 2014-09-25, 16:55

vijayjohn wrote:But what if you're a student in a particular university? Could you go into any class you want to go to in that university, even if you're not signed up for the class?

In my university, which was part of the experiment on distant education, visited by Minister of Education and Putin's ex-wife, it was not allowed. When you come to a lecture which was rather watching an educational video, a person named tutor checked attendance. During practice lessons we had small groups so strangers couldn't come as everyone knows each other and due to attendance checking. If you miss practice lesson, you'll have to pay for passing it. If you don't pass even one practice lesson, you are not allowed to pass final test.

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Re: Can you just walk in to a university lecture in your country

Postby vijayjohn » 2014-09-25, 19:41

linguoboy wrote:I was overstating the short shrift given to love of learning in this country to make a satirical point

That's all I needed to know. Thanks.

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Re: Can you just walk in to a university lecture in your country

Postby TeneReef » 2014-09-26, 0:37

In Croatia,
yes you can (provided that you look like other students so you can blend in :mrgreen:
if you're older than 40 years of age or younger than 18 years of age you are very likely to get busted :P )
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Re: Can you just walk in to a university lecture in your country

Postby voron » 2014-09-26, 8:20

Lada wrote: If you miss practice lesson, you'll have to pay for passing it. If you don't pass even one practice lesson, you are not allowed to pass final test.

Where did you study? :shock: This is very different from the usual way our universities work.

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Re: Can you just walk in to a university lecture in your country

Postby basica » 2014-09-26, 8:48

I've had no issues here in Australia, and the universities sort of work together as well (for example you can borrow books from other universities if you're attending another one) so it makes it pretty easy to do so. Personally I find lectures mostly useless anyways. I've attended lectures in the prestigious universities here and the not so prestigious ones and they're nothing special and about the same really. I wouldn't even have bothered attending university if it wasn't for the fact that my profession somewhat unofficially requires it as anything learned here (paraphrasing Good Will Hunting) could have been done for no more than the few dollars it costs for a library card.
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Re: Can you just walk in to a university lecture in your country

Postby Hoogstwaarschijnlijk » 2014-09-26, 20:29

dorenda wrote:In my university in the Netherlands, as far as I know outsiders were officially not allowed in the buildings, but nobody was checking that. So you could probably join a lecture with a big group of people without being noticed. In lectures with smaller groups, you would certainly be noticed, so it would be better to ask the professor for permission. I have no idea how easy it would be to get it. I guess few people would try it anyway.

This.
Lots of times the room was a little too small for the number of people so then it wouldn't even be possible..
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Re: Can you just walk in to a university lecture in your country

Postby mōdgethanc » 2014-09-27, 4:50

While we're arguing based on anecdotal evidence, I'm not at all surprised there are so few women and minorities in engineering based on the white men I've encountered who are.
Approximately one-in-four male students choose a major in engineering or computer science, but only 6 percent of women do so. Instead, 21 percent of women choose a major in the natural and physical sciences, compared with 15 percent of men.
Meanwhile, contrary to my expectations men are now outnumbered in the natural sciences. Get your shit together, guys!
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Re: Can you just walk in to a university lecture in your country

Postby Lada » 2014-09-29, 18:08

voron wrote:
Lada wrote: If you miss practice lesson, you'll have to pay for passing it. If you don't pass even one practice lesson, you are not allowed to pass final test.

Where did you study? :shock: This is very different from the usual way our universities work.

In private experimental university, it was very hard to study, worse than at school but at least I got some knowledge. And I have no idea how usual universities in ex-USSR work :roll:

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Re: Can you just walk in to a university lecture in your country

Postby md0 » 2014-09-29, 18:25

Heh, I just saw a ling professor on my FB stream sharing the announcement to a Masters' level lecture on L1 Teaching in a Multilingual Society. Now, I haven't been to a Masters' level lecture before, only to BA level ones. So I asked under the announcement if non-students can attend MA level lectures. The answer, just two words (in Greek):
But of course

Like "why would you even ask?" :lol:
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Re: Can you just walk in to a university lecture in your country

Postby voron » 2014-09-30, 14:32

Lada wrote:And I have no idea how usual universities in ex-USSR work

You don't do anything 9 months out of 10, and during the exam periods you try to catch up by self-studying from morning till night. And yeah most students hardly remember anything after they graduate, except for those who plan to do a degree.

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Re: Can you just walk in to a university lecture in your country

Postby TheStrayCat » 2014-09-30, 21:37

voron wrote:
Lada wrote:And I have no idea how usual universities in ex-USSR work

And yeah most students hardly remember anything after they graduate, except for those who plan to do a degree.


That's how a typical human brain works, not just post-Soviet universities. ;)


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