for one of them, i couldn't pick him out of a lineup if i tried. (in contrast, i can recognise the other 13 on sight.)
this one was a ghost.
after the first week, i remember him appearing on the day of the midterm, then vanishing for the rest of the term without a trace. [0]
the other student had a similar story, almost a sequel:
he was doing fine, and his intuition wasn't bad. after the midterm, though, he disappeared. i saw him at the final exam, graded his work ..
.. & to quote paulι, his answers weren't even wrong. being a non-cumulative final, this was particularly damaging to him.
to be fair, when i was an undergrad, there were a few courses whose lectures i often skipped.
in fact, there was one that i showed up for fewer than 1/3 of the classes. [1] then again, i spent a lot of time in cafes, reading the textbook .. and disliking it, leafing through other texts in the mathematics library until i found one that made any sense at all.
so i suspect that my own students didn't quite do the same. maybe they're not coffee drinkers? \-:
[0] to be honest, i wonder if he thought he withdrew from the course, but forgot to settle the paperwork.
[1] i'm also mis-representing the facts, here. that semester i was enrolled for two courses that met at exactly the same days and times. knowing one prof better than the other, i asked him if i could read the book, attend his office hours regularly, and show up for exams only.
he actually said yes.
so that's how i learned basic measure theοry. to this day, i understand that stuff far better than cοmplex analysιs, despite having dutifully attended all of the lectures for the latter class.
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