# 202 pages in 2 days is not fucking reasonable and other college rants **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 5, 2004, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/202-pages-in-2-days-is-not-fucking-reasonable-and-other-college-rants/243563 "2004-05-05T01:04:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![catsix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e19b73/32.png) [@catsix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/catsix)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/202-pages-in-2-days-is-not-fucking-reasonable-and-other-college-rants/243563/21 "2004-05-05T03:27:27Z")
College, ah, I took Shakespearean Lit. Twenty plays in 16 weeks. I vowed when I survived that class to never, ever again bitch about a reading assignment. Seriously, what the others said, 202 pages is not that much for two days. If it takes 4 hours, it’s 50 pages an hour. ---
**Author:** ![Jurph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/50afbb/32.png) [@Jurph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jurph)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/202-pages-in-2-days-is-not-fucking-reasonable-and-other-college-rants/243563/22 "2004-05-05T03:28:55Z")
Grow up, dude. I don’t know about 100 pages in an hour (although if you’re skimming for content that should be cake), but you should be able to do 50 an hour even if the print is small and you need to look up a word in the dictionary every three pages. That’s four hours, which fits nicely into the 2:1 ratio most colleges expect for two nights’ work. You should be able to do this assignment in three hours, though. And if you don’t have at least three hours of every day (weekends included) set aside for homework and studying, you’re not giving it “the old college try.” You’re expecting to be spoon-fed, and your first report card should reflect that fact. Here’s a hint: you learn more from _surviving_ college than you learn _attending_ college. It’s not just what’s in the books, but what you have to do to get near and through the right books. Suck it up, quit whining, and start reading. ---
**Author:** ![WernhamHogg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a587f6/32.png) [@WernhamHogg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WernhamHogg)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/202-pages-in-2-days-is-not-fucking-reasonable-and-other-college-rants/243563/23 "2004-05-05T03:42:05Z")
[qupte]Professors: This is called a lecture for a perfectly good reason. You are supposed to stand at the front of the class and lecture us on whatever topic you are teaching. Do not ask simple fucking questions that everyone knows the answer to. All this leads to is an akward silence in which everyone knows the fucking answer but just doesn’t want to respond. In fact I would prefer it if you did not ask any questions at all. If you want to ask a rhetorical question to illustrate a point but this is not fucking question and answer. [/quote] Maybe your instructor knows that 50 minutes of solid lecture is not effective teaching. ---
**Author:** ![PigBoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/97f17d/32.png) [@PigBoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PigBoy)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/202-pages-in-2-days-is-not-fucking-reasonable-and-other-college-rants/243563/24 "2004-05-05T04:07:02Z")
Heh. I don’t think I’ve ever read 202 pages for a single class within a time period that would be expressed in days so far in my three college years. I’ve become very good at telling the difference between what I’m supposed to read and what I actually need to read. It’s probably a Bad Thing™, but it works for me. But it’s not like I couldn’t do it if necessary. Why, I once read 4000 pages in a mere fifteen minutes while walking six miles uphill in four feet of snow, wearing old newspapers for shoes and a hat, and carrying my younger brother on my back! ---
**Author:** ![Doomtrain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/0ea827/32.png) [@Doomtrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doomtrain)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/202-pages-in-2-days-is-not-fucking-reasonable-and-other-college-rants/243563/25 "2004-05-05T04:09:28Z")
202 pages in 2 days? I’ve read that much on the train in to class, sitting around before class, and on the way back home. Is it a lot? Yea. But it’s not really unreasonable. Especially if it’s a novel. If it’s some of the dry psych studies I’ve had to read, or some of the epics I had to read in my godawful Epics class, I could feel your pain. I usually side with the OPs in I Hate School threads, cause I hate it too. But complaining about a little reading? ---
**Author:** ![flight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bbce88/32.png) [@flight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flight)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/202-pages-in-2-days-is-not-fucking-reasonable-and-other-college-rants/243563/26 "2004-05-05T04:22:03Z")
Ha, it’s discussions like these that make me glad I went into engineering. Ten pages of a text book per class max, and most of the time you don’t even need to do that. Of course we do have those homeworks that ran about 8 hours, one per week in each of five classes… Don’t get me started on the projects. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_fun_ball/32/17664_2.png) [@Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Fun_Ball)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/202-pages-in-2-days-is-not-fucking-reasonable-and-other-college-rants/243563/27 "2004-05-05T04:33:03Z")
I don’t know about reading 100 pgs/hr, I think I could handle 20-30 pg/hr from a technical journal, and actually this is about what I typically do… Not that I get much from skimming this fast. Now last week, I had a 16 hour day in the lab, wrote a 40 page paper (on FFTBPM modeling of a tapered semiconductor laser amplifier, it will probably never be published because it is not my field and I HATED doing it, it did turn out nice though) (granted there were about 20-1/2 page figures and lots of equations), did a 5 page presentationtion using friggin latex (This SUCKS!, Bill Gates is evil, but I would much rather use microsoft office that write a paper in LaTex!) for a midterm grant review, took a final, and wrote a 5 page lab procedure for an undergraduate optics lab on linear spectroscopy. This is in addition to various other shit that I am sooooo sick of… GET OUT NOW ACADEMIA IS HELL AND I WISH I WAS DEAD PHD STAND FOR PHUCKING HELL I WANT TO DIE… Wow, I am so glad this semester is over and guess what… As of today I have an MSEE… Excuse me I going to get drunk… ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_fun_ball/32/17664_2.png) [@Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Fun_Ball)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/202-pages-in-2-days-is-not-fucking-reasonable-and-other-college-rants/243563/28 "2004-05-05T04:34:44Z")
Sorry about that, it really has been a very long semester… ---
**Author:** ![yBeayf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/e274bd/32.png) [@yBeayf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yBeayf)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/202-pages-in-2-days-is-not-fucking-reasonable-and-other-college-rants/243563/29 "2004-05-05T04:44:14Z")
> [@](#): > > Maybe your instructor knows that 50 minutes of solid lecture is not effective teaching. While this may be true for most instructors (as I painfully learned in my Near-Eastern history class, 3 hours of a professor who sounded like Ben Stein with an Oxford accent, and utterly disorganized lectures, gak!), there are some that I’ve had (and have, this semester) who can make a 50-minute lecture absolutely riveting. It’s always a great blessing to have a professor who can describe concepts and events in an interesting manner, have them flow together to make compelling points, and end lectures with cliffhangers that actually make you _want_ to hear the conclusion the next session. ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/202-pages-in-2-days-is-not-fucking-reasonable-and-other-college-rants/243563/30 "2004-05-05T05:18:41Z")
> [@catsix](#): > > College, ah, I took Shakespearean Lit. Twenty plays in 16 weeks. > > I vowed when I survived that class to never, ever again bitch about a reading assignment. I physically shuddered when I read that. A couple points expressed in a disjointed paragraph. I know its really not that much reading but I was just dismayed by the amount when I sat down to do it and felt like bitching about. I also had wanted to bitch about the other parts of my rant but the reading sort of broke the camel’s back. Saying that you can sit down and read 200 pages like its nothing doesn’t mean anything when you are reading for pleasure. Hell I was reading John Grisham’s books in one sitting when I was 12 or so becuase I thouroughly enjoyed them and some of those are around 400 pages. I realize that learning can be achieved through the teacher asking questions, the socratic method and whatnot, but when I walk into a lecture about Thevnin equivilent circuits I know jack shit to little about the topic. You guys are also reading too much into this about my grades and ability to get through college. I said shit 200 pages is a lot of reading and felt like bitching about it. I read it and I will do fine on the quiz tommorow morning. ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/202-pages-in-2-days-is-not-fucking-reasonable-and-other-college-rants/243563/31 "2004-05-05T05:40:25Z")
Don’t take this too harshly, **treis** , but your writing is atrocious. Half of your sentences are run-ons, and then the ones that aren’t are a jumble of unseparated clauses. Though commas shouldn’t be used to excess, they should be used _occasionally_. The reader gets tired loses your point starts wondering where you’re going with this sentence if he left the iron on in the other room and the fact that the sentences I am talking about are remarkably like the one I’m typing now. I’m not really trying to bash you here or get on you’re case, but you’re in college and should know better. Better to have some anonymous guy on a message board point it out than a professor to give you an F on an essay. ---
**Author:** ![Yeticus\_Rex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a698b9/32.png) [@Yeticus\_Rex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yeticus_Rex)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/202-pages-in-2-days-is-not-fucking-reasonable-and-other-college-rants/243563/32 "2004-05-05T05:57:29Z")
Snipettes of the OP: > [@treis](#): > > I sat down tonight to do my reading for class tommorow and I discovered that the reading was \*\* 202 \*\* fucking pages long. > > It is fucking annoying as hell to listen to bags being unzipped and rezipped, binders opened, and other assorted noise when I am trying to listen to the professor. > > If homework is due at the beginning of lecture make sure your ass is there on time so you can turn it in. If you are late do not I repeat do not fucking walk your ass up in front of the entire class and turn the assignment in during the professors lecture. > > This means that 2 minutes before the lecture ends do not pack up your shit and begin talking. My expectations of your behavior in lecture are not that high. All I want you to do is sit down, shut up and don’t fucking disturb me. > > Professors: This is called a lecture for a perfectly good reason. You are supposed to stand at the front of the class and lecture us on whatever topic you are teaching. Do not ask simple fucking questions that everyone knows the answer to. All this leads to is an akward silence in which everyone knows the fucking answer but just doesn’t want to respond. In fact I would prefer it if you did not ask any questions at all. If you want to ask a rhetorical question to illustrate a point but this is not fucking question and answer. > > However if you know you are not going to be there don’t send some fucking TA grad student who knows jack shit about teaching and on top of that barely speaks english. > > Phew. Sounds like you ended up in a junior college…dump it and go to a four year college. ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 5:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/202-pages-in-2-days-is-not-fucking-reasonable-and-other-college-rants/243563/33 "2004-05-05T05:59:03Z")
> [@A Monkey With a Gun](#): > > Don’t take this too harshly, **treis** , but your writing is atrocious. Half of your sentences are run-ons, and then the ones that aren’t are a jumble of unseparated clauses. Though commas shouldn’t be used to excess, they should be used _occasionally_. The reader gets tired loses your point starts wondering where you’re going with this sentence if he left the iron on in the other room and the fact that the sentences I am talking about are remarkably like the one I’m typing now. > > I’m not really trying to bash you here or get on you’re case, but you’re in college and should know better. Better to have some anonymous guy on a message board point it out than a professor to give you an F on an essay. If your referring specifically to my last paragraph I whole heartedly agree. Thats why I put the disjointed paragraph tag on it. Like I said before you guys are reading a rant for the sake of bitching that I wrote quickly and are drawing inaccurate conclusions about my academic abilities. (See I use alliteration huzzah for me!) ---
**Author:** ![armedmonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/202-pages-in-2-days-is-not-fucking-reasonable-and-other-college-rants/243563/34 "2004-05-05T06:18:25Z")
I was actually thinking more about the first paragrapgh of the OP, for what it’s worth. ---
**Author:** ![kambuckta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/53a042/32.png) [@kambuckta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kambuckta)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/202-pages-in-2-days-is-not-fucking-reasonable-and-other-college-rants/243563/35 "2004-05-05T06:40:37Z")
If you’re doing Honours in Sociology, you shouldn’t even need to READ the ‘Intro’ stuff, 'cos Soc. Theory should be second nature to you by now. Most of it would be ‘skimmable’ don’t you reckon? 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Doomtrain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/0ea827/32.png) [@Doomtrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doomtrain)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/202-pages-in-2-days-is-not-fucking-reasonable-and-other-college-rants/243563/36 "2004-05-05T06:45:12Z")
> [@A Monkey With a Gun](#): > > I was actually thinking more about the first paragrapgh of the OP, for what it’s worth. Reading it I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if a thousand English teachers cried out at once, and then were silenced. ---
**Author:** ![iampunha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/74df32/32.png) [@iampunha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iampunha)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/202-pages-in-2-days-is-not-fucking-reasonable-and-other-college-rants/243563/37 "2004-05-05T06:50:47Z")
> [@treis](#): > > Like I said before you guys are reading a rant for the sake of bitching that I wrote quickly and are drawing inaccurate conclusions about my academic abilities. (See I use alliteration huzzah for me!) So then you weren’t given no notice to read a novel in two days? FTR, I read “Ordinary People” in a night. For class. I read Harry Potter 5 in 24 hours (and I had to sleep and go to class). Oh. Read the syllabus. Most profs will go through it, but occasionally you’ll run into one who assumes that your acceptance into college means you are able to read the syllabus and ask questions if you want clarification. Read the syllabus. Plan ahead. I know some of this (expecially the planning, as college is where most students cultivate their procrastination abilities) sounds off or difficult, but it’s worth it (I have 20 pages of justification logs to do for my job for Thursday morning, so of course I have not started on them though I know they have been assigned since January). ---
**Author:** ![blowero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/41988e/32.png) [@blowero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blowero)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 7:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/202-pages-in-2-days-is-not-fucking-reasonable-and-other-college-rants/243563/38 "2004-05-05T07:10:11Z")
200 pages? Why, that’d be heaven. In my day, we had to read 5000 pages an hour while lying on a bed of nails being whipped. And we LOVED it, by gum. And we didn’t have any of those fancy BOOKS, neither. Our reading assigments were chiseled on stone tablets, and they weighed 40 pounds a page, and we had to carry them to class and back 12 miles barefoot in the snow, every day, uphill both ways. ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/202-pages-in-2-days-is-not-fucking-reasonable-and-other-college-rants/243563/39 "2004-05-05T07:30:47Z")
> [@](#): > > If you’re doing Honours in Sociology, you shouldn’t even need to READ the ‘Intro’ stuff, 'cos Soc. Theory should be second nature to you by now. Most of it would be ‘skimmable’ don’t you reckon? Its an introductory class in sociology but is taught at an honors level. Basically it just means a smaller class with a bit of extra work compared with the regular introductory sociology class. I am also not pursuing a degree in Sociology this class is merely fufilling a GEC. > [@](#): > > So then you weren’t given no notice to read a novel in two days? We didn’t have to read the full novel in two days just two thirds of it. All the reading assignments for the quarter are listed on the syllabus. I suppose I should have checked the lengths of the assignments to avoid having to do this much reading in 2 nights. It doesn’t change the fact however that it was stupid for him to have us read two thirds of the novel in 2 days and give us 5 days to read the last third. > [@](#): > > Sounds like you ended up in a junior college…dump it and go to a four year college. Nope I’m at a Big 10 school. That portion of the rant was more or less directed specifically at one lecturer. All of my other professors lectured for most of the classes and if they weren’t there another professor was. > [@](#): > > I was actually thinking more about the first paragrapgh of the OP, for what it’s worth. Yeah you are entirely correct that is pretty piss poor english but in my defense it was more of a stream of thought type writing then a well thought out essay. ---
**Author:** ![MsRobyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@MsRobyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsRobyn)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2004, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/202-pages-in-2-days-is-not-fucking-reasonable-and-other-college-rants/243563/40 "2004-05-05T11:11:21Z")
> [@treis](#): > > Yeah you are entirely correct that is pretty piss poor english but in my defense it was more of a stream of thought type writing then a well thought out essay. So how do you justify the rest of your posts in this thread? Lack of punctuation, etc. Stream of consciousness, my ass. Robin [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/202-pages-in-2-days-is-not-fucking-reasonable-and-other-college-rants/243563.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/202-pages-in-2-days-is-not-fucking-reasonable-and-other-college-rants/243563.md?page=3)