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!

So scheduling lectures outside a 'normal' working day is not new.

I agree that in the past some lectures have been scheduled in the evening, particularly for courses with lots of part-time students. But for most "traditional" universities in the UK this was the exception, not the norm, for undergraduate courses.

There is a lot of bad feeling amongst academics about the fact that they could soon be forced to teach any time from 8am until 8pm or so, and in addition be expected to work ten weekends or so per year for open days and visit days. All for no extra pay, obviously.

Being forced to teach in the evenings could be a nightmare for many parents (particularly single parents) and moreover would be terrible on pedagogical grounds: most students aren't going to be at their best in classes late in the evening.

hefzi I taught an entire course with students sitting on the steps of the lecture room as the anticipated drop off in student numbers didn't happen....

You're right about not being at their best at evening lectures. I certainly wasn't, and there were far fewer familiar faces too, so I suspect there were a lot of part timers there. I'd thought it was because of a p-t lecturer, but now you mention it, it could just as easily been p-t students.

Report back about today's lecture!

replies so far
3 saying 'no' citing insurance and securityand directing me towards 'public lectures'
1 asking me to submit a written request to the relevant faculty

ooh hefzi I'd love to do that. I didn't realise in the days of handouts and copies of powerpoint slides etc that there were still "notetakers".

I'm good at studying, failed a bit in the real world but I was damn good at studying!

My job has also changed a lot since about 2012 or so. I only give a handful of face to face lectures a year now. I mostly lecture online via podcasts or whatever. My students are scattered around the world. We had to adapt like this because many students can't afford UK living costs and the Tier 4 visa thing is a bloody nightmare. The university staff find it pretty expensive just travelling to work as well (few can afford to live nearby). I can't help feeling we are losing something here though - it's all very impersonal.

I had serious trouble attending even 50% of the lectures I was supposed to be at, so I say GO FOR IT OP!