AIBU to sneak into uni lectures even though i'm not a student

[Lecture]

I am in fact a SAHM . We live in a university town and every Wednesday my DM has the baby for the morning so I get a break. About a month ago I ordered a book from waterstones and picked it up from the university branch. I'd never been on the campus before and couldn't believe there was no security or need to show any student ID. After i'd been to Waterstones I got a cup of coffee at one of the cafes and had a wander round the grounds.

Its lovely there, lots of (cheap) restaurants and cafeterias and you don't need to show ID to use them

The next week I went there for lunch and looked around the library for a few hours.

Today I was wandering around and sat on the bench outside the lecture hall. There were hundreds of students milling around and the lecture schedule on a big flat screen TV on the outside wall. Anyway i watched them going in to each room and there were loads of spaces in the halls (big double doors open so i could see in). Then I was looking at the schedule and there were lots of interesting sounding lectures on. It suddenly occurred to me that i could probably just go in and sit in on one without being noticed by anyone. There were quite a few mature students so I don't think i'd stick out too much.

Now i'm home I think I might be being a bit mental (and possibly a bit post natal) to consider essentially stealing lectures I haven't paid for. I haven't told DH or DM i've been hanging around the uni

AIBU (or do you think I could get away with it)

BTW, can't believe the username Lecture wasn't taken!

Donations sounds like a good idea. I get endless alumni fundraising requests from my old uni - they always need money for something.

I went to the inaugural lecture of my now boss. I was considering applying for the job and saw the lecture on the website and just turned up with no id. It was fine and no one asked me to leave and I got the job!

I'd say go for it. At our uni you can wander round with no ID card and no one challenges you. You can also use the cafes but it's cheaper if you show your ID card.

Oh, ok boffin. Yes - all I meant was that if you rang up 'the university' you might struggle, because there's no such animal in a centralised sense, not in terms of there being someone who makes decisions about who can attend lectures.

And by the sound of posts from people working in areas like healthcare, there might be different rules for different departments.

Actually even small donations really help a lot, they go towards things like redecorating and remodelling rooms, buying extra books so several students can borrow popular ones at once, paying for extra student support such s reading groups, paying travel costs for external speakers, and so on. £100 can actually do quite a lot if it is ring-fenced. So if someone came in and said 'I really like the public lectures in xx department, and I would like to make a small donation towards the everyday life of the department, can you let me know now it is spent?' this might be well received. Staff would vote on how to spend it in a meeting, it would be good for morale, and the Big Boss would probably notice this had happened and give the department Brownie points for running good public lectures.

A bit different because my friend was a already a student at this uni. She was studying English but was fascinated by astrophysics. This was 25 years ago before the subject was as sexy as it is now. She used to sneak into the back of the astrophysics lectures and just marvel at the subject and the lecturer chalking indecipherable things on the board. She couldn't understand much but appreciated the subject and its significance for us all as humans occupying space.

Being one of the few women in the room, she was noticed. But the lecturer was happy that an arts student wanted to listen to him. They struck up a friendship, not an inappropriate one. The lecturer went on to head up his department and is a now Professor emeritus and they still meet up a few times a year.

An inaugural lecture is pretty much like a public seminar.
It's a special occasion.

In any case, whereas some universities may already have a donation scheme and would direct you there, I don't think anyone would be able to coordinate with any form of random lecture attending.

Having said that, I think in some cases you could register to attend specific modules and would be given a certificate for those. But you'd have to look at what the University offers and if those modules are offered for external students. But, and I've just checked my old work place, it can cost about £2000 per module.

That's interesting about lectures in some subjects being more communal too - thanks for clarifying!

Yeah, inaugurals are a strange event. DH is a newly-minted Chair writing his, and is trying to work out how to pitch it to an audience that will at once include a wide range of Faculty colleagues and PhD students, members of the general public, and possible (increasingly?) relatives. It's a strange mix and it's all quite personal too - really, it's more autobiographical than a normal lecture, in the sense that it's more focused on the individual's research rather than a teaching session for a course.

This has got me thinking about all the different 'genres' of lecture: inaugurals; outreach public lectures; star invited guest speaker lectures; lectures by media or political figures; ordinary pedagogic lectures as part of a course. They're all really different, aren't they?

BTW, the Royal Society often holds public events that look very interesting. (for me :) )

royalsociety.org/events/

Gresham College is another option for people who can get to London.
"Free Public Lectures

Gresham College has provided free public talks within the City of London for over 400 years.

Founded in 1597, Gresham College is London’s oldest Higher Education Institution. Our Gresham Professors and other visiting speakers offer over 100 free public events every year."

www.gresham.ac.uk/

if someone came in and said 'I really like the public lectures in xx department, and I would like to make a small donation towards the everyday life of the department, can you let me know now it is spent?' this might be well received. Staff would vote on how to spend it in a meeting, it would be good for morale, and the Big Boss would probably notice this had happened and give the department Brownie points for running good public lectures.

We obviously work in very different universities Boffin. If someone tried to do that where I am, the central administration would take the money, spend it on rebranding the toilets, ban the interloper, and bollock the department for giving something away for free.

Haha FatherReboolaConundrum we might work for the same university.

But personally I am happy to give away education for free where possible, when it doesn't impact negatively on the paid work and paying students. I consider myself to be paid by public money (partially at least) for the common good (wanders off into ideological timewarp..).

Exactly, Madd. I teach and research on my subject because I love it when not procrastinating on MN and think it's important that people, including me, know more about it. I'd welcome anyone into my lectures, as long as there's room. Except Michael Gove.

Boffinmum I was at Cambridge with Tristram Hunt. His Dad was a fellow of our college. I always thought he might at least have had the decency to apply to a different college instead of flaunting the nepotism. That said, he didn't study his Dad's subject and he was pleasant enough, if a bit aloof, and clearly quite clever.

I honestly don't see why people think this is a problem. I think it's fabulous that you're so keen to learn. No one is having to do any extra work with you there. As long as there is space then why the hell not. Yes, people have to pay for degrees now (I was the last year that didn't) but they're getting an official qualification at the end of it. Don't understand the security aspect at all. This is a university, not a school. Everyone attending is an adult and there are so many people at uni that it's not like they leave valuable stuff lying around.
Good for you for finding education on your time off. When my DM gives me a break from DS I lie in front of the telly eating chocolate!!!

I have emailed Durham University, University of York, University of Leeds, University of Nottingham and University of Sheffield to see if I can turn up and sit in on 'non-public' lectures.
I will post their replies!

may, do you have a particular subject you want to hear?

Your best bet might be to email the lecturers directly, as others have said before. I used to be at York, and have colleagues lecturing at all of those universities who I know are allowed to include non-student listeners (we're all early career, so we've all had friends and/or partners come to lectures for the novelty value!).

I find it somewhat funny the idea that a £100 donation would even be mentioned in a meeting at any level.

at rebranding the toilets. I can imagine that happening in one or two places I have had the misfortune to attend conferences at.

Lweji, we would discuss that in a programme or departmental meeting at the end, along with acknowledging the fine collection of international snacks provided by grateful postgraduate students to Faculty members, that had been brought down to have with the coffee that day.

fine collection of international snacks provided by grateful postgraduate students to Faculty members

Now, that is definitely amusing.

But I will certainly try to indoctrinate my students about it.

I think it's great you are doing this and think you should continue. What's the point of an empty seat in a lecture hall when it could be filled by someone interested in the subject. Bet lecturers would agree.
To those saying that students pay loads for lectures , they don't. They pay for their learning but lectures are a small part of that and not even compulsory. It's compulsory to complete the coursework and sit the exams, how you obtain the knowledge is up to you.

Maydancer, universities are ginormous institutions, and much more complex than you seem to imagine. I think the most likely outcome of your search is that you get passed from pillar to post while people try to work out what the hell the answer is - and it's quite unlikely to be a single answer for a whole university. As people have posted, anthropology is likely to be quite a different kettle of fish to clinical sciences! And as for Oxford and Cambridge, 'the university' barely exists in the terms you are thinking about. The answer to 'You and your boss don't set university charging policy, do you?' is effectively yes. If the head of a department says 'sure, come and listen to our lectures' to somebody, then that is what goes - who exactly is going to turn up to overrule them do you think?! Lectures will be going on simultaneously in literally dozens - hundreds even - of buildings spread all across town. The centralisation possible in this kind of environment is very limited - thank god.

Xmasbaby, what an unpleasant comment. How can you assume that the OP could not follow the content of a lecture just because you can't? You have no idea of her intelligence or education!

I'm a lecturer and often have people sitting in on my lectures, I usually notice as they are there every week (unlike my "regular" students, sigh!). I never ask why they are there, I'm happy they are interested. In fact, if one of them came up at the end to ask for extra material etc. I would happily help. Most of my colleagues would do the same, learning should be open to everyone (and most of us think that higher education should be publicly funded and fees should be much lower, if any at all, but that is another story). I would not ask the university, the administrator will resent the extra work and they would probably say no to avoid setting a precedent.