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!

If this was when I was at university and education was free then YANBU but now its been turning into a fee based service then YABU.

Depends on the subject VagueIdeas many of my undergraduate psychology lectures were very accessible and interesting and we regularly had visitors joining the class. I remember one series of human sexuality lectures where the lecturer did have to ask people who weren't enrolled to leave but only because, such was the level of interest, there weren't enough seats for everyone

YANBU at all. I'm always amazed more people don't do it tbh.

When I was a student we had a rather attractive young lecturer on an interesting topic and my friend on a different course had him for one lecture and, on finding out I had him for more lectures, gatecrashed my lectures.

We then both carried on going to another class he taught! He was pretty good though and went on to become mildly famous in his field as well.

Go for it.

I teach at a uni. DH is a professor. Both of us would be absolutely delighted to know someone like you was sitting in the class. I don't know many academics who wouldn't, to be honest.

Of course, we probably couldn't be officially delighted, since the neoliberalisation of universities prevents such things.

Really? Students have to pay to access courses - surely this is the same as sneaking into a cinema when you don't have a ticket? i.e. stealing

I sat in on a Vet Science lecture once, with my then boyfriend. I am not a vet. The lecturer called on me and I had to 'fess up that I had no right to be there. He said he was still interested in my opinion I had no fucking clue if it was caudal or cranial

You sound like the kind of odd person that's fun to be around op

It might be wrong, but I love the idea! I'd love to go and sit in on lectures without having to do the work after (which was pretty much what my university years were like anyway )

I'm with LaContessa. I like you.

It's unethical, yes, but I think 'stealing' is a bit harsh. It's not like you're submitting work and asking for it to be marked!

My DSis and I were at university at the same time and if our holidays/reading weeks were different we'd often visit each other and sit in on each other's lectures, especially if it was just one and we could go and do something afterwards. We did very similar subjects, and nobody ever said anything (although the one I went to when somebody I knew from orchestra at my own university was guest lecturing at my DSis's was a bit weird!).

No - students are paying for a whole degree course. They get lectures, they get tutorials, they get seminars, they get libraries with neatly stacked rows of set books carefully laid out so they can't possibly miss them, they get reading lists, electronic course materials, tutor time, exams, marking, pastoral care, endless answers to witless emails saying 'I just don't know what to read for this essay'. At the end of it - and this is the real reason most of them do it - they get a bit piece of paper that they can take to institutions to say that they deserve hundreds of thousands of pounds more over the course of a lifetime than an equally intelligent student who doesn't come from the same class and hasn't therefore had the chance to get this training.

Sneaking into the odd lecture here and there is not stealing, because it is a tiny part of what universities offer. It's not like the OP is getting the whole benefit of the course, and it doesn't lead to any additional structural benefit apart from self-improvement and hopefully some enjoyment. Knowledge isn't private property, and it's certainly not something that you go to a vending machine for and say 'I would like three books' worth of facts please, here's thirty quid'. Nor is the OP's presence in a half-empty lecture theatre detracting in any way from the enjoyment or experience of any of the students doing the whole course.

Give me someone who loves the subject enough to be there on their ONE afternoon off a week any day. I'd love students like you, OP.

I live in a small town with a big university. Local people are encouraged and welcome to use a lot of the facilities- brand new sports centre, fitness suite, swimming pool, starbucks, supermarket, theatre productions, cafes and also the university library. My husband goes there to study when he has any career related exams as our house definitely isn't quiet enough these days. As we are welcome on campus there's definitely no ID checking going on, I'd love to bunk into a lecture one day!

UG law lectures are often pretty large and and assume little prior knowledge as Law A level is not regarded as a good idea by most universities.

It isn't theft, possibly it would be caught by the Fraud Act.

I say go for it, sit there looking vaguely interested with a set of ear phones in. If asked to move on then deny that you didn't know that you weren't allowed there? Their fault that they haven't got access points to lectures (this technology is widely available).

I work in the sector and have visited about 30 Universities in the last 12 months and have found that access to Universities really vary regards security. Some are completely locked down, you wont get access without an ID card or signing in and on the other hand some encourage members of the public to access their campus.

Some have shops and banks for public access, encourage people to attend the theatre, use the restaurants and other Universities have buildings of historic interest that are open to the public and are packed with tourists (Such as Cambridge, UCL, Kings and Greenwich).

Some Sports facilities are open to the public via membership and I have spoke to Uni's looking to actually increase footfall and the average spend of a visitor (including chargeable Wifi in one case).

I think you should be able to listen into lectures, the staff spend hours writing them so why not have a bigger audience. Maybe if the lecturer isnt happy they could flag up it's not for public viewing - but it seems most are happy for the extra interest.

Just keep a low profile but not too low in case that peaks interest from the lecturer! Like not sitting at the front or the back in class but in that middle ground they ignored

And when you're done come and enlighten us about the amazing facts you have found out.

Vaguely related to this I have recently taken up a new interest in Maths - currently working my way through some GCSE stuff - did a mock exam for DS1 and me and did quite well considering its been $% years since I did maths. Now I am older it seems to be clicking in place and I am a bit bewildered why I didnt get the first time round.

I can't see a problem with you sitting in. The things that students pay for are the marking, the exams, the tutor's time, the seminars, the access to the library and so on. You aren't costing anyone anything in either time or resources by sitting in. (Unless it was a packed lecture hall and paying students were turned away through lack of space, but that doesn't sound like the situation here.)

Enjoy it!

I've looked all over the website and can't find any timetables for lectures.

Will just take a wander down next week and see what takes my fancy . Although the engineering one today was 100% 18 year old Chinese and white boys. I don't think I'll fit in there!

Vagueideas at 14:53 you said:

"Well I studied English Lit and am pretty sure some random off the street wouldn't have understood very much without some prior knowledge of eighteenth century Gothic fiction / Romantic poets / 20th century modernism / whatever. Like I say, it's undergraduate level stuff, not "talking about books".

My point was that there is no reason why a "random" such as OP may not have read those genres to some extent because they were written for the public, not as academic texts. Equally he/she may have read some literary criticism because it is not locked away in ivory towers and indeed often forms part of the preface of Penguin classics for example.

That's entirely different from saying that a "random" is unlikely to have read papers in mathematical journals or an anatomy textbook, although I do think that your saying that no non- undergrad would understand anything of what was going on was too extreme. History lectures, for example, could well be both sophisticated and accessible.

You would easily get away with this here. I'd be happy to have you in my lectures (though I doubt you would want to listen - highly technical stuff with lost of formulas).

Even when registers are taken it is often for the purpose of monitoring student attendance (we have to do this on direction of the Home Office). We don't worry much about people who don't want to sign the register.

Obviously if there was crowding out happening of our genuine students the lecturer would have to say something, but that is unlikely.

As another poster said up thread, most lecturers would simply enjoy the extra interest. (And yes, a lot of work goes into preparing lectures.)

I used to go to my friend's social anthropology lectures all the time. I was at a different uni in the same city. They were interesting. Do it.

I wouldn't mind, so long as you switch off your phone, don't have a whispered conversation with the person beside you, text, or pretend that you are using your laptop to take notes when you are really on ebay.

South East!

I'll let you know how it goes

Just pondering, is attending a lecture for a course you have not paid for ethically that different from not paying your fare for a train journey?

The train will be going anyway.

(Sorry if this point has been raised already, I confess I have not read every post)

As a pp said, I'd love to go to uni for a year but just not do any of the work! I don't like writing essays but I do like learning (current topic of interest, Tudor history!)

I say do it. Maybe ask the lecturer at the beginning if it's ok, if it will make you feel better. You never know, you might find you want to enrol full time as a mature student!