I have no problem with a small, quiet sandwich. Nor, apparently, does the OP. However, that was definitely **not **your point when you compared being in class to being at work.
Enphasis added.
Suggested snacks that would be far better than noisy, non-nutritious chips and candy: cheese stick; handful of nuts; cup of yogurt. At least these would take away the “hungries” for a while.
I must reiterate: Yes, we have trash cans inside and outside the classrooms. That doesn't mean that food can't fall on the floor. Students usually make no attempt to clean up what falls. The custodians can't clean until the end of the very long day. There are potential problems with ants, flies, bees, wasps, yellowjackets and rats being attracted to certain places because of this.
There are practical reasons for not allowing people to eat in class.Reading this thread makes me very glad that I do, in fact, have the ability to go without any food (and often very little water, unless I’m talking) for several hours straight. This could serve me well this fall.
When I started at community college, we weren’t allowed to eat in the classrooms. Unfortunately, security’s method of enforcing this (and it WAS security that decided how to do all this, the dumb fucks) was to take ALL of the trash cans out of the classrooms. You can imagine how well this worked during cold and flu season.
Considering that class snacking seems to go up as class attention span goes down, I’m sticking with my guns here and saying that noisy eating is just flat-out twattery. We had a guest lecturer that was actually interesting and I noticed people actually paying attention, taking notes, and not eating noisy crap during her lectures.
Actually now that I think about how boring my Greek civ. prof is, I’m not so sure I blame the eaters. Despite my attempts to pay close attention, it seems like the most I learned were how many ceiling tiles the lecture hall has.
And Guin, darling: I have had a job, and have had to deal with people eating around me. Hell, the company potluck was centered around my office. Eating in a cubicle however is not the same as eating in the middle of class. A more valid comparison would be eating noisy food during a power point presentation, which I am sure most would agree is wrong.
Class length is also a factor, as I noted in an earlier post. If a class meets three times a week for just fifty minutes each, students can eat before and after since there is no break and it’s not a very long meeting anyway.
In a class that runs three or four hours, the professor should be giving regular breaks, which can be of different lengths; or even have one long break. When I teach classes of this length, I give a short break first and then a longer one, since there’s not just the hunger factor to consider but the bathroom necessity as well…and while we’re at it, people should neither be sitting nor standing for more than an hour, maybe an hour and a half at most.
Heh,
To me, there is no situation that couldn’t be worked out with better planning (barring a medical condition), regardless of intensity of schedule or how much money you don’t seem to have. There are times where I feel bad for the professor when a total lack of respect is displayed by students breaking out in snack time, often in the most awkward of times.
It’s this mindset people have – that their actions are invisible and go unnoticed by others. It’s unbelievable.
How about this non-eating example, from one of my grad school night classes this semester (about 30 students): last week, two students arrived about 10 to 15 minutes late. The first one, a 40-something female, quietly opened the door, put her head down, and as quietly and carefully as she could, slipped into an open seat near the door she’d just entered. Then the second person, male probably mid 20s, opens the door all the way, slowly struts into the class (while the professor is lecturing!), surveys the room, lingers ever so slightly around the front row, before pushing his way through the open desk he likes the best.
Both people were disrespectful by not making it to class on time, but the difference between the two is so extreme, that I would compare the second person in my example to what Queen Bruin has described as corn-flake girl or doritos person. It’s disrespectful, end of story.
snicker I thought that said bananable offence. Then I I thought what kind of punishment can be administered with a banana snicker
I was going to create a post using exactly the same words as the above. In exactly the same order. Down to the very last letter. It’s a miracle.
-FrL-
If it was easy to ignore, I wouldn’t be posting about it, would I?
Good for you! It’s a good thing to stick to your guns, unless you’re making an irrational argument; but since this is mostly opinion, not much chance of that. Well, let me temper that by saying there’s no harm in changing your opinion also. I’m not advocating inflexibility.
Unfortunately though, you seem to be contradicting your earlier statement that your classmates are acting like children and not knowing when to behave in a respectful manner. Your example above seems to indicate that they indeed do know when people are worth their time and interest (in their own assessment) and have the intelligence and capability of not eating and paying full attention during those times. They seem to know when someone deserves respect. It may simply be that they don’t feel that the professors in the classes you hear the most noise aren’t afforded the respect you think they should be. Or that they’re not respecting you because you want to be able to hear the professor. In these cases, it might be best if you let people around you know that you’re interested in hearing the lecture.
When I was in school, I always heard through the grapevine whether the professor was worth spending the time listening to. And in those classes where the professor had gained the reputation of not being worth the time, those classes were generally noisier. If however, I chose to listen to those professors for whatever reason, I would ask the people around me to please keep the noise level down. In some of the classes where the professor had this reputation, the professor generally kept attendance records. Otherwise, the class might be empty.
You have no imagination. Look at what you can do with a trout.
I don’t know where you are from, but rude is rude whether you are bored or not in my locale. Even a boring professor deserves respect during lecture - therefore I’m going to assume that they either DO know that they’re flaunting social rules like a general asshole, or they DON’T and simply do not know any better. Which is pretty hard to believe, but I’ve been surprised about things like this before.
Nonetheless, I’m sure I will give notification a try if this behavior continues during finals week - unlikely, since nothing is allowed on the desk except for writing utensils and bluebooks during the three hour exam. I have no idea how they will ever survive that long. They’ll simply waste away into nothing, no doubt, leaving me with sweet solitude.
I’m with you on this one. It is going to be great knowing I can go a day without food without passing out or whining about how hungry I am.
Off the top of my head, I can think of at least five courses in the English department that are on three- or four-year rotation. Most are offered only in the fall semester or only in the spring semester, and those are generally pre-reqs that you need before moving onto higher-level courses. There’s one course on Victorian female authors that I want to take, but probably won’t be able to, because the next time it’s offered is in like spring 2010. For smaller, less mainstream majors, it can be even iffier as to when the class will be scheduled, or if it will even be offered because of low enrollment.
I also know several music and theatre majors who have schedules like the one Revedge posted. One of my closest friends leaves his apartment every morning at 7:30 for an 8 o’clock class and returns at 10 p.m. He’s a vocal education major, so he really can’t eat in most of his classes because he’s singing in them. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, he has a half-hour for lunch. Every other day, he can’t eat until supper time. He’s a big fan of cereal bars and other things he can eat during the ten minutes between classes.
Packed schedules like those are especially rampant in the music, art and theatre departments, especially if somebody is an eduation major because the classloads are so huge.
I’m not saying the OP’s wrong. Loud eaters annoy the hell out of me, too. Just don’t excoriate everybody.
Wow, Heffalump and Roo. We’re talking about higher education here, not a stand-up comic on amateur night. With all due respect, those who feel the prof is not worth their respect can take their Gong Show asses home. People are paying for the privilege to be in the room and hear the lecturer do his or her thing. If it’s not working for you, LEAVE. Drop the class. Find another prof. Seriously, what kind of thought process is that?
I find it ridiculous that the student who expects the norm - relative quiet, respect for the learning environment - is charged with the responsibility of informing self-centered classmates of what a classroom should be like. But unfortunately, I think Queen Bruin will probably have to ask the prof to tell these morons to keep their munching to a minimum.
I’d also like to endorse vivalostwages’ point about consideration for the custodial staff. I always get to know the staff at my school, just because I really appreciate that they make our learning environment so pleasant. People treat classrooms like their dens, and I’d bet there are rooms in their own homes in which they wouldn’t eat. But somehow a classroom is no big deal? These are the same people who forget that the custodians that barely make a living wage have to clean up after them, and whinge when tuition increases because they’ve had to spray the classrooms for ants.
I still think if you need to eat it’s best to step outside for a few minutes and do so, but if not, quietly and neatly does it!
Thirded. Same class that seems to have the worst eating offenders has a note from facilities stating “THIS IS NOT A MOVIE THEATER, PLEASE DISPOSE OF YOUR TRASH” posted next to all the exits. So it’s not like this is a problem, or anything.
I sometimes eat during class. I never considered it was inconsiderate, but nobody has ever complained or even given me a dirty look that I saw. I typically have a soda or something to drink with me as well.
I don’t care though. If some overly sensitive person doesn’t like me eating (and it is usually a sandwich or something, not some constantly crinkly noise-making food), tough on them. No matter what I do, somebody will have issue with it, so I says “fuck it.” Who cares. That probably makes me an asshole in many eyes, but you don’t know my situation, and I personally don’t need your approval.
That being said, my classes are all 10-15 minutes apart, and sometimes I eat during those periods instead. It depends on if I have to make a phone call or something. I also work sometimes before and sometime after classes. Sometimes I eat there. It depends on my lunch schedule.
edit: Oh, and I throw away my trash.
Thanks for proving my point. Good luck with your social interactions.
Hey, why not do that in class, too? Three birds with one stone!
My social interactions are just fine. I have plenty of friends, a loving GF and a rich social life. My eating or not in class affects this… why ZERO. Imagine that.
If you can’t see the difference between eating a sandwich or a bagel and talking on the phone, you are beyond stupid.
Read the thread - I have no beef with bagels or other quiet foods.
The other students in my class don’t seem to be able to tell the difference between potato chips and bagels, however. The attitude of your post though seemed to indicate that you’d do whatever the fuck you want and to hell with anyone else, up to and including anything you deemed fit. So pardon me if I jumped to conclusions.