Hey guys, neet here. Just wondering if I can sit in a university literature class without having to pay for it?

>professors of smaller classes will be delighted to have more people i

is this true? even at graduate level?

I've had a professor knowingly let me sit in on his class for the second half of the semester. Expressed interest in the topic and explained that I knew the first half of the material and only cared about the material that came in the second half.

I purposefully didn't engage in any of the class discussion unless it came to a halt due to the rest of the class not caring about the material.

I sat in on several lectures (100+ students) for an entire year worth of classes

I sat in on several smaller lectures (20-40~) for an entire year of them, and only in one or two did the professor ask why I was there, and it was only because each class section had mandatory participation and he thought I was a registered student so I needed to be graded. I just told him I was auditing and he said "oh, well, whatever."

I've sat in on two PhD-level seminars (5-10 people) in departments completely unrelated to mine, by just asking via email whether it's OK for me to do so, and showing up. But I was a grad student in another department when I did so, so that helped.

University is very decentralised. In most big classes, no one would even notice.

Yes. If the class is large enough nobody will notice; if the class is small is unlikely that the professor will turn you down, professors are usually glad there is people interested in what they have to say, but bear in mind that there's always one or two angry folks that may turn you down, so it's a good idea to do some research of the professor giving the class.

Where I go to school the professor has a pdf with everyone's name and photo. He or she will eventually learn faces if not names. After a few weeks I usually recognize all my classmates. People often sit in the same place every class, which makes it easier. "Ah, yes there's the sjw girl with the cute red hair, is she wearing her bondage bra today? She is! How unproblematic."

I would bet that the lecturer would be onto your shit in a class of

Not in this day and age. Professors hate teaching any classes. They'd rather just do their research and never have to teach anyone anything. I've actually overheard them talking about how much they hate even their PhD candidates.

1. Rent a wheelchair
2. Turn up to lectures in wheelchair
3. Stare down the professor until he realizes he can't kick out a wheelie
4. ???
5. Profit!

How is it so many of you haven't heard of auditing? Old people in my city love auditing classes. Is this not a thing in other parts of the country/world?

>Where I go to school the professor has a pdf with everyone's name and photo. He or she will eventually learn faces if not names. After a few weeks I usually recognize all my classmates. People often sit in the same place every class, which makes it easier. "Ah, yes there's the sjw girl with the cute red hair, is she wearing her bondage bra today? She is! How unproblematic."
What kind of weird university do you go to? Let me guess, the university of make-belief?

>Pay full price for class
>Don't get the credits for it
Yeah, let me just whip out $2K to sit in a class.

My accounting department does the same thing. There's a history of cheating in those classes because the intro ones are so large.

i don't think it's a popular concept and many instructors discourage it unfortunately. in my experience, students with active standing at said university have the best chance to convince an instructor to allow them to audit, but unaffiliated individuals will likely be turned away. it's both a resource and regulation issue- plus there is always the concern of liability.

this is a common practice at several large universities. instructors usually have access to a database of all their students accompanied by their student ID photo, even if they don't choose to use it.

the photo can be pretty useless at the end of the day, as some people can look vastly different with a minor style change.

heh education costs in your country?

Yes, because it's actually worth something.

>bugerpeople think their degree is worth something
>turboeasy degree that doesn't ask anything from its students because the university treats its students as customers, not as students, and the customer is always right
>burgerpeople will next come up with university rankings
>which are based on labor from foreign scientists and based on how much money the university makes from student fees

And thus we continue copy/pasting stale posts from weeks ago to make identical arguments

You don't pay for audited classes. I'm gonna take that as a yes, a lot of people here don't know what auditing classes are.

>euros are THIS mad their schools are largely irrelevant on the global stage

>copy/pasting stale posts from weeks ago

>You don't pay for audited classes.
catalog.umbc.edu/content.php?catoid=4&navoid=362#auditing-a-course

>All American universities are art schools
Hmm, really makes you think

Fucking no, that's weird as hell.
Just enroll in school, faggot.

As a prof, my advice would be to choose a large, first or second year class, and just go every week. If I recognize your face after the first two classes, I would never bother trying to figure out if you were registered unless you were annoying me or obviously not paying attention. Get a copy of the syllabus and don't show up on test days, or dominate conversations. Also, you might do a little research on your prof first. Some of them pride themselves on learning all the students' names, and are very involved. I have a terrible memory for names and don't bother to try in larger classes (try memorizing the names of 150 people you see at a distance for a few hours a week and usually never speak to, and multiply that by a few courses). If questioned, say you registered late. My class list is never up to date, and it's entirely possible you're telling the truth. If you were auditing, I'd have you listed, and I'd notice, because that's unusual.

are Veeky Forums based classes even large? Seems like not a ton of people would enroll in it these days. I may be wrong?

In practice yes.

of course they are but the students are wack

Are you kidding me? Those are some of the first classes to fill up. At my school (UMBC, I posted a link a couple posts up) there are 40 seats and 20 waitlist spots. As of right now they're all full. Mostly sci-fi nerds who want to be just like Sanderson. They'll be in for a shock when they find out both of the professors are nothing like him and what they watched on YouTube. Apparently, one's a Camus scholar though.

>Mostly sci-fi nerds who want to be just like Sanderson

20 is already too much for a workshop

In my country you can literally waltz in and sit down to listen to the lecture. My uni prides itself in a long tradition of this one patrician hobo coming to sit in on intro constitutional law classes and heckling young lecturers on fine historical and jurisprudential details until nothing remains but spaghetti. He's great. For profs it's like a rite of passage or a deflowering.

At least in theory anyone can waltz in, because with the terrorist attacks they've got security guards asking for ID cards at entrance. But they know the patrician hobo so they let him through. But it's widely known you can sit down in classes without being a student and no one raises a stink, at least if the room is not full.
Mostly auditionners can apply to the university for dirt cheap and have access to most courses easy peasy.