At UCLA, on the last day of class, it is customary for students
to applaud at the conclusion of lecture. This phenomenon is rather
mystifying.
It would seem that most of the time students are not merely
clapping out of joy for their excellent professors. Instead
it’s some sort of ritual. By exploring this social
convention, perhaps we can learn new things about the hearts and
minds (and souls) of UCLA students.
“Students do it more for just convention and
tradition,” said fourth-year history student Carly Grovhoug.
“It’s become such a normal thing that if you
didn’t, it would be a blow to the professor. I’ve never
been in a class that didn’t have it, but there have been
classes with standing ovations.”
History lecturer Gabriel Wolfenstein said it seems that students
applaud because it is expected, or that students might even feel
that end-of-class applause is mandatory.
“But it can be spontaneous as well, though there are no
hard and fast rules to determine when the applause is heartfelt as
opposed to merely obligatory,” Wolfenstein said.
“It’s something you can more or less sense. To put it
another way, sometimes students clap because that’s what you
do at the end of the course, and sometimes they applaud because the
class has been meaningful and you the teacher have connected with
them in some way.”
Conceivably, the standing ovations that Grovhoug has witnessed
have been given to professors who are truly loved. But then, maybe
a normal applause indicates that students are just being polite. Of
course, no applause at all must mean something fantastically
terrible for a professor.
“It didn’t happen in one of my classes and it was
really awkward,” said fourth-year history student Nate
Thompson. “Everyone hated this professor and it was kind of
unspoken, and when she said, “˜OK, thanks class,’ and
walked out, there was deafening silence. You could hear crickets
chirp and cell phones vibrate.”
I should make it clear that I don’t make a habit of
clapping at the conclusion of the final lecture, unless it is truly
warranted. Thompson echoed that sentiment.
“I don’t clap for anybody ““ they should clap
for me for coming to their (expletive) class,” Thompson
said.
Thompson’s words made me think. As students, we are
essentially paying the professors for a service. When your friendly
Starbucks barista makes you a hot chocolate, you do not shower him
with plaudits, do you? Would it not be strange if that were a
social norm?
While it is clear that applause for professors is a regular
thing, it’s another story for teaching assistants at the
conclusion of their discussion sections. Wolfenstein said that he
has received applause at the end of almost every course he has
taught, but that it has been different for his sections.
“TAing is a little different,” Wolfenstein said.
“I think the received wisdom ““ that you applaud at the
end of a course ““ is more unclear with sections. And at least
for me, when I TA’d, things were more variable, though the
section applauded more often than not.”
So while it is customary at UCLA to applaud at the end of the
last lecture, and maybe even in the last meeting of the discussion
section, this is not the case at other schools across the country.
For example, at Duke, no such thing is done. Instead, Dukies have a
different way of ending their terms.
“Everyone is drunk in class on the last day; they bring
their drinks to class because it’s an open campus,”
said Eliza Pike, a third-year Japanese and public policy student at
Duke. “You bring your plastic cup to class.”
At least UCLA’s social convention is not as weird as
clapping at the end of a movie. That seems completely pointless
““ it is not like Bruce Willis can hear you. It must occur
because people want to show the other patrons in the theater that
they enjoyed the film. But when people clap, it always embarrasses
me, and I will never understand why it’s done.
“At one level, it’s certainly a bit bizarre. … And
it would be rather strange to clap in front of the
television,” Wolfenstein said.
So in comparison, clapping in class is not that strange. But
when it’s simply done out of habit, it’s certainly a
bit peculiar.
However, some students have a completely different theory for
the applause phenomenon ““ which may ring true with many
students during finals week.
“We clap to celebrate the fact that we don’t have to
listen to that (expletive) anymore,” said Alex Brizolis, a
fourth-year political science student.
In this column, two students used the word (expletive).
That’s how you know it’s finals week.
E-mail Miller at dmiller@media.ucla.edu.