We had a joke when I was in college ('95-'99): “What’s the difference between a freshman and a senior? A freshman brings a can of soda to a lecture; a senior brings a hoagie and 2-liter bottle to a recitation.”
At my school, there was a guy who sold Indian food out of a truck just off-campus, right by the lecture hall used by my department. His tandoori chicken was awesome, and none of the profs ever complained about people bringing that into lectures. I’d hate to think how some people in this thread would react to that.
I never used to take food to class as an undergrad, but i usually had plenty of time outside my class times to fit in my meals.
I’m now a grad student, and i’m currently TAing at my school (mid-size private university) and teaching my own history class at a local pivate art college.
The class i’m TAing is a seminar class, where the professor and i sit in a room together with the 20 or so students for two hours and dicuss the book they’ve read. The class actually starts today—in about two hours—so i’m not sure yet what his policy on eating is.
In the past, when i have taken sections in the classes for which i’m a TA, i’ve had really had a policy about eating, as long as it doesn’t disrupt the class. The only time i’ve ever mentioned it in class was to cut short some moron who thought that a big, noisy bag of crunchy chips was an appropriate classroom snack.
In my own class, at the art college, i also don’t mind students eating if it doesn’t disrupt the class. The art college allocates classes in large blocks of time, so that students can undertake studio and practical classes that can be up to four or five hours long. My history class goes from 9 until 11.45 am, and if a student has a studio class at noon (and often another class directly following that), then he or she might get no real opportunity to eat for eight hours or more.
To those who say that such students should just change their schedule, i’ll reiterate the point that some other folks have made: changing your schedule is not always possible. Between a heavy course load, working moutside jobs to pay the rent, courses with size limits (meaning not all students can get into the classes they want), and other vagaries, it is often hard enough just to get a schedule that is physically possible to attend, let alone one that allows sufficent free time for meals at convenient times.
Thankfully I saw very few people bringing in whole meals to my classes. There would be the occasional dope who brought in a McD’s bag, but that was by far a rare occurance. More often it would be vending machine snacks or little things like a slice of bread from the campus convenience store. 5 minute snacks that didn’t cause much in the way of disturbance.
I think a lot of the anti-eaters don’t have much first-hand experience with this, due to it being disallowed when they went to school, and are relying more on visualization. What do you imagine when you think about ‘eating in class’? A burger and fries, or a slice of banana nut bread?
I find this veery weird. I was an undergrad thirty years ago, and I ate in large lecture halls when I had no break for lunch. a lot of students did. Heck, the dining halls provided packed lunches (upon request) for those circumstances. There were even vending machines right outside the lecture hall for precisely this purpose. Nobody cared.
My first year in grad school I had an unbroken schedule from 8 AM to about 5 pm two days a week. Damned right I ate in class. Again, in a large class, who cared?
I don’t recall ever eating in a small (10 people) or sio class. That would’ve seemed rude. But in most cases, no rescheduling was possible, and eating in class was very much an accepted way of life.
Actually, I pay a lot better attention in class when I knit. I have a great deal of trouble concentrating when my hands are not moving, for some reason. If I don’t have my knitting with me and I attend a lecture, I usually find myself doodling and losing the thread of the lecture, even in lectures where I find the subject fascinating.
I also don’t knit so other people can look at me, and frankly, I don’t know any knitters who do. I’m certainly not trying to say, “Look at me and my awesome hobby.” I would venture to guess that few of my fellow students even noticed that I was knitting, since I usually do it with my hands in my lap and rarely look at it. I know that a couple of professors in larger lecture classes didn’t notice for weeks.
And in case you’re about to bring it up, yes, I also knit at work, and no, no one gives me grief about it.
If there’s no difference between eating and “munching chips in your neighbor’s ear,” I guess not. Did you find it rude when people next to you ate in cafeterias? The people there are more likely to munch in your ear; people in class usually try to eat quick and get it over with.
Don’t you take notes? Jesus, when I was in college, I didn’t have to worry about keeping my hands busy, I took notes in all of my classes.
Quite frankly, I find having my stomach growling and wrapping itself around my backbone to be more of a distraction than quietly nibbling on a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich. And in some classrooms, it was so freaking hot and stuffy if you didn’t have something to drink, you’d be too thirsty to pay attention.
(Thankfully, in classes that were only once a week and longer than your usual ones, almost everyone of my professors gave us a ten minute break half-way through to go to the vending machines, the restroom, etc.)
I suspect some people are less imaginative than others. When they went to college, their parents paid their way through, so they didn’t work an outside job. Perhaps their academic advisor set up their schedule for them with easy lunch breaks. Perhaps they had an on-campus meal plan that provided them with hot meals at regular intervals.
And they’re neither capable of nor interested in understanding that the situation is different for many undergrads today. It fills them with a certain glee to be able to show contempt for students whose situations they’ve not comprehended, and to judge them far more harshly than their professors, their co-students, or indeed anyone with an actual stake in their behavior would judge them.
I did take notes, except in classes where the professors lectured from overheads and handed out copies of them - I might add one note to the handout in the course of an hour for those. I hold my knitting in my left hand while I write, then set my pen down and return to knitting.
But keeping my hands busy enough while taking notes either involves 1) writing down every freaking word, in which case I end up becoming a human dictation machine and lose track of the meaning, or 2) doodling in the margins, which frequently ends up taking over both the whole page and my attention.
Sure, maybe I’m a freak. But I’m not trying to show off, or even trying to accomplish something else while sitting in lecture - I’ve had days where I knitted through class, then went home and unraveled the whole thing for one reason or another.
Do I remember correctly that you have ADHD? I’m not formally diagnosed with it (although my doctor did switch my antidepressant because of attention issues), but this is really my own accomodation to an attention deficit problem. On the few occasions where professors indicated concern with my ability to succeed in class while knitting, I explained the attention issues, and they generally told me I could try it for a while, but reserved the right to stop me if I didn’t demonstrate competence. In all of these cases, I ended up participating more fully in class than most other students, and received very good grades.
Yes, I do have ADHD. And if that worked for you, and your professors were okay with it, that’s fine. Personally, I know I couldn’t concentrate on both, if I had brought, say, my embroidery in.
People can schedule 20 minutes for lunch because they are over 12 and not morons. They do not need their “academic advisor to set up their schedule with easy lunch breaks,” but, because they have a modicum of maturity, realize that they can work their lunch in there somehow. I’ve known many a hard working student who can manage to eat and sleep without doing it in class. I’ve been such a student.
I work in higher ed, at a public univeristy, and I’m not fooled for one second by this portrait you’ve painted of “undergrads today.” They certainly have time to hang around outside our office and talk on their cell phones, throw frisbees around on the lawn, sneak joints behind the science building, sleep on the lawn, and hang out at Starbucks. I imagine they also have time for lunch, but prefer to wait for class to do that. Before you get upset, I think they are entitled to do all those things. It’s what college is all about. But don’t tell me the student schedule is so jam packed that no one can eat on their own time. I know a guy in his thirties who works full time AND is a full time student, and I also know him to take lunch breaks. He doesn’t eat in class. Even 8 hours of work and an hour of drive time and 4 hours of classes gives you nearly half a day to eat.
Don’t defend it. Don’t justify it. Don’t make excuses about it. Just do it and ignore their majesties who think their presence is a cause for reverence. It’s a very resonable time to eat. No words should be comming out of your mouth regularly during lecture, so it’s a good time to shove food down it. “Disgusting food noises”? Give me a break, we’re animals. Food softening processes are a required part of nutrition. You don’t like it, Oh well, grow up. Rude and disrespectful? if you’re self esteem is that poor, that someone eating while you talk is a hit to your respect that’s your problem not mine. If me eating distacts you then you have a serious attention problem. You should probably work on that, and leave me alone. It doesn’t have a damn thing to do with entittlement. It’s convienience and efficiency, nothing more, nothing less, and nothing to do with you.
It’s ironic that you’d say “your majesties,” when you’re the arrogant one, deciding everyone should kowtow to you and put up with your noisy distractions.
