Lifting the Lid on Lectures

By Paddy Harte

As a politics and philosophy student, my experience of lectures has been limited to an interesting, if highly theoretical, area of study. In an attempt to widen my horizons, I have spent the last week doing the unthinkable and giving myself more contact hours; going undercover to see what is on offer from other departments.

MIDWIFERY
Sarah O’Reilly
Clinical Simulation Unit

I started with a visit to a lecture I feared may scar me forever – a midwifery demonstration. I didn’t even know we did midwifery, not least that these trainee midwives do their training in a full mock-up of a hospital ward which is situated on campus in the Seebohm Rowntree Building. The place was amazing – it had an intensive care unit, loads of fake bodies (including one which responds depending on how you treat it), and even one of those emergency alarms that doctors always press in Casualty.

The department is really small with just under 20 trainees, but, I’m told applications regularly reach over 300 – and its easy to see why. The training workshop I went to was brilliant, a clear and thought out talk. The lady in charge initially discussed how to perform CPR on a pregnant woman, explaining that the best way to time your compressions was to sing ‘Nelly The Elephant’ in your head whilst moving your hands up and down (strange, but probably quite practical!) After the talk the midwives split into groups and practiced CPR on the fake bodies.

ATMOSPHERE: Exciting

WHAT I LEARNED: If a pregnant woman sleeps on her back, apparently her baby will start kicking to wake her up.

STAR RATING: *****

ECONOMICS
Prof. Yves Balasko
Microeconomics 2

I decided to move onto more mundane territory for my next visit: economics. The very French lecturer, Yves Balasko, had an accent to die for, better than even Poirot himself. He told us that the graphs on the board were “shimple” and talked about the trading of ‘beunannas’.

Sadly, his comical French accent is about the only positive thing you can say about this lecture; he kept showing us graphs with loads of random squiggles, and the maths was incredibly boring. I therefore spent much of the lecture playing noughts and crosses and drawing penises on my friend’s notepad. At one point I even resorted to reading Nouse – it really was bad times.

Possibly the only thing that forced me, and probably the whole lecture theatre, to concentrate was that he consistently picked on audience members to answer certain questions, a harsh, but probably quite effective tool against ‘lecture laziness’.

If he had picked me I would have had absolutely nothing to say apart from the fact that I was excruciatingly bored and wanted to go to the pub.

ATMOSPHERE: Fear

WHAT I LEARNED: That I never want to do economics.

STAR RATING: *

ARCHEOLOGY
Prof. Terry O’Connor
Settlement And Economy

A 09.15 start this time, and trust me it’s hard enough getting up for your own lectures let alone somebody else’s! Having said that, this lecture was a surprise; as I snuck in and sat at the back, I was prepared for an hour of hearing about digging methods, the discovery of some old monument and a plethora of boring case studies. How wrong I was.

The lecture was actually about the history of domesticated animals and the archaeological processes that were used to figure this out. Ancient farming methods, the different types of meat ancient civilizations used to eat and even human decision theory, were all topics that were discussed. The professor was first-class, he was clear and interesting, and the whole thing felt more like watching a national geographic documentary than being in an archaeology lecture.

ATMOSPHERE: Stimulating

WHAT I LEARNED: That the domestication of animals began over 9,000 years ago.

Star Rating: ****

SOCIOLOGY
Dr. Ruth Penfold-Mounse
The Rogue Celebrity

Walking into the lecture theatre I got the sudden feeling that I might actually be on a night out, I mean, the whole room was full of Ziggy regulars!

Anyway, this lecture was bound to be interesting; discussing celebrities for your degree sounds utterly bizarre, but that’s what it was – a discussion about celebrities who go ‘rougue’ by committing, or being accused of, some sort of crime.

The lecture was pretty simple stuff, but in its defence it was intriguingly insightful; sort of like reading Hello magazine, except more intellectual. The sociological frameworks were discussed, using academic texts to provide insight into celebrity trends. The lecturer went on to discuss the merits of good PR when a celebrity goes ‘rogue’; it was current, it was (vaguely) academic and it was practical.

My favourite bit was when the lecturer went off on a little tangent about some celebrity or another. But I’m not going to repeat what was said – there were some rather controversial opinions about Miley Cyrus!

ATMOSPHERE: Bitchy Intellectualism

WHAT I LEARNED: That even if Michael Jackson had been convicted, it would have been practically impossible to send him to jail – imagine the abuse!

Star Rating: ***

POLITICS
Dr. Tom Harrison
India – Democracy, Development & Anti-Poverty Policy

I returned to more familiar home territory for my final visit – a politics lecture on India. Though I have an obvious prejudice, this lecture was top-notch and full of interesting facts. The lecturer addressed why India’s democracy is not providing sufficient levels of economic development – seemingly a complicated question. We were given a quick run through the history of India’s politics in an attempt to find an answer, but this approach was really easy to follow and I left feeling that I had really understood quite a difficult concept.

Having said this, as in most humanities, no clear answer can ever be reached and there will always be loads of different arguments – it’s the nature of the subject.

ATMOSPHERE: Engaging

WHAT I LEARNED: That India has a seriously engrained caste system, where-by the lowest of the low are called “the untouchables” and are not even allowed to drink from the same well as the rest of the village.

Star Rating: *****

After visiting five lectures I was left with a good taste of the variety offered by York’s departments – the midwifery session was by far the most exciting, if traumatic, experience, while both the maths and the style of the economics lecture only led to fear. Even if it just came in the form of a French accent, however, all lectures had their strengths – although I will be pleased to get back to my comfortable days of five hours a week.