Today’s four hour class on retail merchandising was a real eye opener. For the ill-informed (the small group of people who haven’t yet made fun of the retail guys who attended the class), this was a guest lecture by some industry guy (from somewhere out there) which was supposed to take place between 2:00 and 6:15 pm.
Yes. 4 hours and 15 mins precisely.
Meaning some guy was supposed to come over and tell us that the way we learn it is not the way it’s done in the REAL world (followed by a meaningful smile at the students).
“No. I don’t mean to say that what you are studying is not useful (surreptitious glance towards the prof.). What I mean is … blah blah blah… “
This precious gyaan would then be followed by a majority (nay, all) students patting their backs about validity of their opinion that everything taught in the class room is (pardon me) BULLSHIT. To be followed by a session of bitching about how pathetic the professors are and how outdated the course material is and so on and so forth. Everyone’s happy. Except the prof. who got the guy down in the first place.
Well, here’s what really happened.
To start off with, the class was supposed to be for 4 hours. My observation says that a guest lecture of an hour and a half gets about 7 mins to prove himself. If he doesn’t curse or declare that everything we learn in college is utter crap, he’s dead. This guy looked short on confidence, stood leaning on the chair, and declared in a mousy voice (without the aid of a microphone), “I am going to talk about retail merchandising”. At which point 100+ students decided that their time was better spent fantasizing about the projector screen falling on his head than listen to him. He could have gone on to demonstrate the top 100 positions from kamasutra and nobody would have given a damn.
Nobody could hear him beyond the first 2 rows. The only person who was even making an effort to pay attention reminded the guy to use a mike, following which his family was cursed up to 8 generations on either side.
The smart ones had foreseen all this and had come fully prepared with newspapers, books, biscuits and the like. The dumb ones tried sleeping or borrowed from those who had backups (extra books, newspaper supplements etc).
The guy went on for 3 hours, interrupted by questions from the only guy in class who was still awake, (the professor), after which he decided to spare us the misery of the last hour and hastily dismissed the class. “Any questions?” he asked and was met by a hundred incredulous smirks.
People got 2 classes worth of attendance, the professor got an industry lecture, some guys got a few hours of sleep while the remaining managed a few pages of their current book (which ironically included a book titled “What they don’t teach you at B-School).
By the way, did I mention that he got a standing ovation? Meaning people had gotten up to leave when some guy gave what sounded like a vote of thanks, and people banged on the tables. Because that’s what we do.
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