• BLOG
• ABOUT
• LECTURER
• OLYMPIAD
• S-PAPER
• PURE APPLIED
• MISC.
• CONTACT

During my junior college days, this would be a common sight after most lectures. After the lecturer had finished the lesson with a particular principle, the bell would ring, and then the lecturer will be swamped by students who attentively hear for 10 minutes what secret formula he has in hand. The rest of us 'normal' students would exit the room feeling a sense of insecurity as though we have been left in the dark of this secret formula.

See, I am a 'normal' student, the one who leaves the room with the rest of the group. So one day, I just decided to see what exactly is this secret formula. Plowing my way through the crowd of enthusiast students, I painstaking got a spot among the crowd expecting something like integrating sin to the power of n. To my dismayed, it simply turned out to be another slightly more difficult example of integration by parts. Hmmm, some secret formula it is...

I, by no means, am degrading this bunch of students, the ones who want to get everything they can from the lecturer. Instead, I want to dispel the myth that the ones who 'stay back after the lecture' are the better ones and that the students who leave, which I'm included in, seem disinterested in the subject. Totally wrong! Definitely, there are a bunch of reasons for us to leave perhaps one being that we have perfectly understood what the lecture was about and thus need no further clarification.

Is seeing the lecturer a characteristic of a good and attentive student? Yes it is. And I do acknowledge their enthusiasm to learning mathematics as shown through their actions. But does this automatically mean that they are exceptional students. Not likely.

And here is where I defend myself. Sometimes, I leave for lunch. Sometimes, I leave for basketball. Sometime, I leave for home. With the exception of that one instance, I never stayed back after any lecture. But does that make me a lesser student. No. At least for me, I was heading to a small little bench outside the room to prove Kepler's Laws. Well, that's just for me I guess.