Lectures at university

Remember that the ‘Inequality of wealth’ lecture was just about five minutes long. Most university lectures are 50 minutes or longer.

There will be an awful lot of information delivered in this time. You need to be very selective about the material you do use from the lecture and the extra reading you will do, otherwise you will become overwhelmed by the workload.

Many lectures nowadays are recorded. This means that you don’t need to worry about writing a lot of information down during the lecture. But it is extremely important to engage with the lecture and make notes about your thoughts, ideas, questions, or simply where you need to do some more studying to understand a particular concept. Some lecturers may suggest you don’t need to take notes, but after doing this course you will appreciate that taking notes is about engaging your brain with the material, and so is an extremely important thing to do.

You will be guided in the extra reading you need to do through reading lists, but the most absorbing and rewarding work comes from questions you ask yourself, and material you find yourself. Being able to question, research and think about issues raised from lecture material are critical skills that are really valued by university lecturers.