As I got closer to the room, I noticed all the artwork and designs running through the corridor. I noticed that the class I was going to observe was not held in a class but a lecture hall. A theater to be more precise. As I entered the theater I was amazed by its size. It was a decently sized space looking like it could fit about 400-500 people give or take in its seats. Towards the end of the theater was a big stage which was predominantly covered by a large projector screen which I assumed the professor was going to be using during his lecture. To the left of the stage was a podium, standing tall and somewhat thin. Entirely made of wood. When you entered the theater, you were met by a long row of staircases descending towards the stage. There were about 30-40 rows of seats from top to bottom with about 15 in each row.  

I had arrived in the class about 10 minutes prior to it starting so that I would be able to get a good seat and be able to observe everyone. The theater was already very crowded, as expected the only time students come to class early is to be able to sit in the back. When it comes to a lecture hall surely it does not matter because it was not an interactive lecture. Maybe, it saved them the seemingly endless queue of people leaving at the end of the lecture all trying to leave through one exit. Nonetheless, I noticed that hardly anyone sat alone. Mainly, in groups of three or more people. This self-created seating plan by the students caused for a lot of empty seats yet so many to be filled at the same time. A common trend was sitting closer to the edge of the rows which caused a lot of foot traffic for students coming and going and it left all the seats in the middles of the rows to be left empty. 

By the time I had gotten to the theater the professor was already there, very charismatic, he wore a white turtleneck with a grey/blackish blazer, and blue skinny jeans with black boots. In his older years presumably maybe early to mid 60s. His hair looked thin and as white as snow with a haircut like The Beetles. He wore a pair of glasses with circular lenses. Though he had all these features the most noticeable one was his smile. Even from all the way in the top of the theater his smile was noticed without fail. In about 5 minutes the whole theater filled up and he began the lecture. He pulled up a screen for the students to open to and take the attendance question. And in unison everyone in the theater took out a laptop or a phone and began to answer the question. Once the allotted time ran out, he showed a poll of all the answers. There were four answer choices and B was the correct answer by a significant margin. Of course, you had the students who were not paying attention when he said the answer before starting the question who got it wrong. Upon seeing that a few students got the seemingly impossible to get wrong question incorrect the theater let out a laugh that sounded like a laugh track from an 80’s sitcom. 

About 15 minutes into the class a Dominican girl sat next to me, she looked out of breath as if she had run a marathon through the NAC to get to class. Holding a coffee in her hand and her notebook in the other, she sat down let out a deep sigh and turned to me. I had my notebook out and my laptop, so she thought I was taking notes. She asked me for the answer to the attendance question and for the notes that she had missed. I looked at her and explained that I was not really in this class, but I needed to observe a class and write about it for my English class. We laughed about the encounter, and she commended me for coming early to a class that I was not even enrolled in. She then explained how she was always late to the class no matter how early she tried to be. I suddenly felt more comfortable in the lecture and continued to write my notes. I was amazed how they were all so focused on the lecture for the most part. Many students did not stray away from their notes with the occasional few who could not resist sending a text or putting on a movie to watch. 

The professor was extremely fast paced, and he used some sort of see through brown paper to write his notes with what looked like a dry erase marker. Constantly referring to the course textbook throughout his notes as he had given his students a reading to do before coming to class. Every 20 minutes or so he would pause the note taking and put on a youtube video about said subject. The videos were short, no longer than 5 minutes, very animated but highly informative, nonetheless. It became apparent that even halfway through the semester many students were not yet accustomed to the professors’ style/pace of teaching. After 40 minutes of notes, he opened the daily quiz for students based on the lecture he gave. All the students opened the quiz and that was when the chaos commenced. Everyone took notes but only a few knew the correct answers. From my seat I saw a sea of frantic heads looking around hoping that someone around them had the answer so they could copy them. In panic most students just guessed because everyone was as lost as the other. Once the students finished the quiz they were free to go.