Why?

What’s wrong with us, guys?
Why? Why do we always break out into a clap in the middle of the class, startling the professor, who looks absolutely astonished, startling those poor sleeping beauties, who try their best to fight against the sweet lullaby of sleep but fail miserably? This is probably the most visible form of mass mentality that I have seen at ISB. We seem to be waiting for some arbitrary spark somewhere to gleefully clap and thump our desks. Agreed that there are some absolute gem of comments passed by some of our professors which deserves a wide round of applause, but aren’t we taking it to the extreme?

And then the standing ovation. Well, I do not know whether it is politically correct to say this, but do we need a standard ovation at the end of each professor’s final class? I mean, I completely agree that all the professors have done and will do an absolutely terrific job in imparting the knowledge to us (whether we imbibe it or not is of course our prerogative) and in keeping the class lively and in their passion and exuberance to teach. But a standing ovation? Really?
If we do it at the end of each final class, doesn’t it lose its meaning and sanctity when we do it for a professor who probably is the best of the lot?
I am not passing nor want to pass a moral judgment, but to do this every time, in my opinion is an overkill.
Let me not be caught on the wrong foot here. The professors deserve each and every ounce of respect and adulation that we give/have for them, but let us not make a mockery of a tradition/practice which needs to be used with a little restrained alacrity.

And then the basic etiquettes. I am sure I am not going to earn a lot of popular brownie points by writing this, but hey, gimme a break.
When a person is speaking or about to ask a question in the class, how can you cut her/him off? There are something called soft skills and etiquettes. If you want to discount those, there is at least something called manners.
We pride ourselves by saying that the student body is rich with experience et al, but hey, if we don’t display the minimum levels of manners, then what is the point in glorifying the “rich experience”? Don’t we all learn some basic etiquette during our career? Why is that forgotten in the class?

And, last but not the least. Gross misuse of the e-mail form of communication to the point of being rude.
I mean, if I get a mail where the person has written “Please don’t reply to all”, I certainly wouldn’t want to hit the “Reply all” button, particularly so, if the mail is going into the mailboxes of 400 odd students. I can think of only two reasons for doing this.
One is that you are rude and attention seeking to the point of being obnoxious.
And the second one is too nasty to be put up on this public forum.
Come on guys, respect other people’s privacy and don’t intrude onto their personal space unnecessarily. If you think that you have lots of fans who are mad enough to wait for that next arbitrary mail of yours, please create a personal list of them and make use of it.
Of course, there are certain topics which would be beneficial to the entire student body and in that case each and every one of us should judiciously make use of it.
And of course, I am not a jerk to say that you should never send funny stuff or a forward or an arbit reply once in a while.
But doing a reply all just for the sake of it and doing it with regularity, particularly when the sender has requested not to do a reply all, well, not the most proper thing to do. Grow up!