Sleeping is for Quitters

I've come to the conclusion that the intellectual culture of students at UCLA is diseased.

This is class.

It's mostly silent. The professor rapidly copies equations from his notes to the board, speaking in a monotone, boring himself just as much as he does the students. Behind him, the students who are not asleep or on browsing Facebook on their iPhones/blackberries are copy the equations the professor is copying from his notes to their notes (why not replace lectures with a xerox machine). They write furiously, almost desperately, as if they might get a's by turning a full notebook in with their final.

Occasionally, some poor fool wakes up, wipes the drool from his face and, despite the odds, actually becomes interested in what the professor is saying. He raises his hand tentatively and is immediately skewered with irritated looks, as if his question would actually prolong the class, which is of a scheduled, predetermined length. He ignores the looks, soldiers on and asks the question. It's a good one, but the professor is too busy plowing through the material to treat it with much attention. Though his interest is piqued, he only has ten weeks. He can't afford any digressions. He shunts the question to office hours. The Obnoxious Question Asker looks relieved for it to be done with, and a few minutes later, he goes back to sleep, resolving never to do that again.

Class ends. The professor looks relieved that it's over. He looks strangely lonely up there. The students shuffle out of the room, taking out their cell phones and putting on headphones to start their 'real' lives. Those of them who want letters of recommendation stay behind to inflict terrible awkward, forced conversation on the professor, who fields the questions, glad for some human contact, but he mostly just wants to get the hell out of there and get back to work.

Outside, the students talk about how they're so much smarter than everyone else, and lament about how they are saddled with a bunch of idiots for their group project.

"How did such and such even get in to UCLA? I worked my ass off!"
"I bet she just studied really hard"

They treat the material like some gelatinous muck they have to slog through to reach their goals. They skip class, take adderall and learn the whole course in a night.

What has happened?

edit: Maybe not this quarter for myself at least. I'm actually impressed by the first couple of classes. My first environmental economics class was genuinely fucking fascinating, even though the professor basically called me an idiot, and Effective Methods of Social Change is so ridiculous I can't believe it's actually happening. I'll write more about it when I actually know what's going on. And my econ 102 professor is actually concerned about his student's learning and is an interesting, impassioned lecturer! And australian - excellent bonus. The only problem is these classes will be so time consuming that I might not have time to deal with Rod Swanson's bullshit in International Trade Theory. The man hates marriage and wants the world to know.

I just checked out my professor's facebook and his taste in music is incredibly similar to my own. Cut Copy, Feist, Ryan Adams, Architecture in Helsinki, MGMT, my morning jacket? I have the music sensibilities of a 30 year old australian economics doctorate.