In 2004, the 75-min lesson was instituted at Yeungnam University. Many students and professors had difficulty adapting to this change in their schedule. University adminitrators expected that the '75-min lesson' would make every lesson substantial and improve the learning process. However, It reduced the concentration power of many students. Above all, I felt so bored ,attending the longer sessions. Professors didn't adjust school hours at all and couldn't help giving ineffective lessons, because they were accustomed to doing 50 min lessons. Now that we have the '75 min lessons', we can take a break for 15 minutes. But, when we have one class right after an other it often takes about 10 to15 minutes to get to the next class. In that case,the 15 minutes isn't a break , but rather, transportation time to get from one class to an other. We only get 5 more minutes break time than ! previously.
During the first term, I took German for two credits. I was given 2 credits for 1h and 45 min of lecture per week. The professor for my German class gave students a 10 minutes rest. If the lesson had continued without this rest, the qualitative aspects of the class would have been ignored. Although university administrators looked forward to improving the quality of lessons by implementing the '75-min lesson' ,I think the'75-min lesson' lacks consideration for students and professors.
Students are used to taking 50 min classes. It's because they had 50 min lessons in middle school and high school. Before we realize it, modern people will become used to being ruled by time schedules which were made without thought to themselves. I'm sure that people who want to live a decent life and wish to feel an easy rythm to their life will recognize this present university time-structure is flawed. Why are stude! nts requested to be at school before 9 a.m.? Why should class times be 50 min, 75min, 1hour, 2hours? Couldn't school officials make time for rest?
A central organization controls and standardizes the Time Table in school. So, students' lives have been mechanized. It's not only important to change the '50-min lesson' into a'75-min lesson'. It's more essential to think about the fact that a human being is not a robot but a living being, and to find out if it is really possible that each being is capable of truly living in amechanized society.
