[gumpzilla]

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Two classes. ~$22,000 a semester. So you spent roughly $4,250 to learn absolutely nothing from some of the most brilliant minds in the world.

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So you think he's taking nine classes or so? Yikes. Doubtful. Furthermore, before you get all sanctimonious, there is a WORLD of difference between not attending a class and not learning. Reading, thinking and talking are frequently more effective than getting lectured at for a wide range of people.

I'm curious what subject this was in. My last semester as an undergrad I turned nocturnal about halfway through in an effort to lead something resembling my normal social life while also working on my thesis. I gave up on my classes other than the one physics class I had that had one meeting for an hour a week with me and one other guy. In particular, I stopped going to topology immediately after the midterm, eight weeks or so before the end of the semester.

After my thesis was handed in, I decided to go back to topology. The professor for that course, who I hadn't spoken to about this move at all, acted as if nothing was out of the ordinary and conversed with me when I came in and sat down (it was a seven person course or so, so my absence was super conspicuous.) I talked to him afterward about whether he'd be available to talk to me about homework for the course, of which I'd handed in nothing, as I tried to feverishly learn two-thirds of a semester in topology in two days before the final. Over the next two days I did basically two-thirds of the homework for that class and then took the final, and got out of the class having never handed in any of the homework which was 30% of the grade with a B.

Stunts like this make good stories in some ways, but it's a mixed bag. I was back at my college recently for a reunion and was talking to a current senior in the physics department. A professor that I had for one course apparently told a story about me doing five problem sets for his classical mechanics course overnight at the end of the semester (the structure of the course made it so that these were five heavily worked-on problem sets, so this was mostly tying up loose ends but still involved a lot of work). I know the story was about me because he apparently MENTIONED ME BY NAME to a crowd of people, none of whom had been at the college at the same time as me, so there wasn't any reason for him to think that they would have any clue who he was talking about. I reiterate that I had this professor for one course almost five years ago. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I heard that.