how to deal with a boring lecturer
1. Attend the lectures in person. DO NOT listen to them online. If you can barely handle a boring lecturer in person, how on earth are you going to have the discipline to listen to it in your own time? Everything else you have to be doing will suddenly be so much more attractive: even your chores. Attending these lecturers in person forces you to be present in the class and, at the very least, you’ll be looking at the lecture slides and picking up on occasional sentences.
2. Try not to take a morning lesson with them. You’ll be tired from late nights or early starts, and the boring voice/content will make you even more exhausted. The best thing to do with boring lecturers is to get it done the first time around, so that you don’t have to listen to the lecture more than once. Try to schedule your class for a time when you know you’ll be awake/alert.
3. Don’t sit with your friends. Sitting with someone is just asking for you to not pay attention. You’ll exchange notes, browse the internet together, and probably do everything except listen to the content. Sitting on your own in a boring class is painful, but it’ll pay off, I swear.
4. Do as much preparation as you can. If you’re prepared, there’ll be less of a struggle in class to stay awake, because you already know what’s going on (and you know what key words to listen for!)
5. Study groups! If you have a lecturer you don’t click with, chances are that you’ve missed some information, no matter how hard you’ve tried to pay attention. A study buddy or a study group is a really fantastic resource in this case: exchanging notes and teaching each other the content not only helps you guys understand it better, but it means that you’re less likely to miss important information because the lecturer’s voice put you to sleep.
6. Try to make it fun. A boring lecturer means that you’re going to end up finding the content boring, even if you were interested to begin with. Try to regain some of your interest when you’re studying: read the info aloud, treat yourself after doing a certain amount of work, make your notes colourful, etc. Anything that makes it look more visually appealing might remind you why you wanted to take this class in the first place.
7. Just do your best. No matter how disciplined you might be, having a boring lecturer is going to be painful, and you’re going to want to slack off. Do your best, and focus on the future instead of the now in order to motivate yourself. For example, I had a really boring history lecturer last semester. Instead of thinking about how I had to sit through two hours of his class every week, I reminded myself why I was taking his class: because I love history, and my end goal is to teach it. Reminding yourself of your goal will motivate you, and make it a little bit easier.
Good luck!
