Issue date: 11/2/09 Section: Opinion

Media Credit: Evan Andrews [Click to enlarge]

While most students appropriately use the time allotted for questions, a few loudmouths feel the need to turn the end of class into their own personal soapbox. The clocks ticks toward the beginning of next class, and innocent students are forced to hear an incoherent rant that should have taken place during office hours. Instead the mouth-breather babbles on, wasting everyone's time as the professor feels obligated to patiently indulge the classroom idiot.

College is the place to engage in debate and offer opinions, but these all-day talkers are not interested in letting others open their mouths. Many are not even inclined to wait for an opening for discussion before they begin dominating the class with a half-baked hypothesis, flagging down the professor as if they were waving for a taxi. Desperately the professor glances around for an actual question, before ceding the remainder of class to the overzealous student. An audible sigh can be heard as several students consider shaking the stupid out of the speaker.

During the first few weeks, the class crier woos the professor with pertinent questions and comments relevant to the lecture. But the student speaks too long, reiterating the same information after the point has been made. Initially students are often hesitant to ask questions, as many of us wait for the first failing quiz to start reading material before class and are afraid of drawing attention to our laziness. So under the guise of participation, the student slowly makes a move, seeking to seize the lecture. Comments quickly turn into challenges, and the Chatty Kathy continues the plot for total word domination.

The eventual end comes when the student interjects personal anecdotes and problems into the one-way conversation. They start describing an imaginary friend in oddly specific detail, a rhetorical tool to prove their real life experiences, and superiority over the rest of us. Inevitably the guise is dropped, and personal experiences are barely connected to the subject. The rest of the class is subjected to a minimum of two incoherent ramblings per lecture, as the windbag drones on long after their point has been made, almost as if in love with the melodious sound of their own voice.

Continued...

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