Photo Guy Ackermans It happens to everyone; you are slouched in your seat in the lecture hall, listening to someone talk about binomial and normal distributions. Listening may not be an accurate description, as the sound escapes your right ear even before reaching the left.
Precisely this happened to me last week. I felt my eyelids growing heavier. I suddenly jolt up and lean forward as I hear the tone change in the professor’s monologue. Did I hear that correctly? I listen to what I just heard, as you may do when you fear you have not been paying attention to someone’s words. I immediately understood which part sounded like music to my ears. It was the sentence: ‘…and there is no way you could claim with a straight face this is a normal distribution?!’ I quickly take notes in my otherwise empty journal.
Never again will I stare blankly into the distance during lectures
Using an abstract phrase in an exact statistical environment sounds so contradictory. A saying implies a generally accepted truth, such as ‘Is Pope Leo XIV Catholic?’ While the exact is all about formulae and graphs. I often chuckle when I hear an absurd combination such as this.
Never again will I stare blankly into the distance during lectures. I take more notes than ever before. All remarkable words and expressions my professors use are jotted down. My journal is now full of sentences such as: “he really rooted that out well”, “you must be melancholic…”, and “I am perplexed that…”.
I frequently see people around me entertain themselves with senseless activities during lectures. Someone may be tallying buzzwords, while another is memorising the professor’s wardrobe. There may be some truth to the saying that boredom fosters creativity.
Philip Timmers (19) is a first-year bachelor’s student in International Development Studies. He likes gardening and is always up for some fun. He enjoys reading in nature on warm summer days.
