Bell in a college class?

[Russkafin]

I hate when TV shows and movies do this. Since when do college classes ever end with a bell? (Or in this case, more of a buzzer, I guess.) I mean I suppose maybe some colleges do this but it is very rare, since most classes are at various different times and don't have a common ending time.

[slave2moonlight]

I don't recall, but they may have had bells at our college.... I can't remember for the life of me, and it wasn't THAT long ago...

[djpnutz]

Our college does... They set the courses to where they all start and end at a certain time... but there are a few exceptions like double hour classes and lab courses... But yes... We do have bells.

[kryptonite-proof]

My college has bells as well. I think it's pretty standard. Not all classes start or end at bell times, but most do.

[superspider02]

At my college we have no bells and classes start and end at various times it was weird seeing that they have bells/buzzer in clark's college.

[Summers]

We don't have bells in my either. The only bells I ever heard was when they were testing the evaucation sequences for fire. The professor is the one that dismisses. There is no need for bells.

[kryptonite-proof]

Well, ok, it seems that this depends on the specific college/university then, but I think it is common enough that having class end with a bell on tv isn't artificial.

Personally, I think something more artificial is how every college classroom is portrayed as a lecture hall setting, when from my experience, most classes are held in smaller classrooms. But I do understand that they want to make it clear that this is a college classroom and that seems to be the standard way to do it.

[Liriel]

I was going to say "we didn't have bells", but then I realized we did. They rang every hour, I think. And you couldn't hear them hardly when you were in class. But they didn't signify the end of class. They didn't signify anything actually. We were on a semester system so we had 50-minute classes on M-W-F and 75-minute classes on T-TH.

Anyway, you certainly didn't leave class until the teacher dismissed you.

[Hendo]

my college had bells but they weren't used for night clases

[tejdog1]

We don't have bells in our college. Professor generally dismisses you when class is over. For instance, right now I'm in 4 2.5 hour classes (night classes), and they rumnn 525 to 755pm. SO we know when class ends, we don't need no stinkin bells!

[trusupagyrl]

My college doesn't have bells but all the classes start and end at eht same time during morning classes, it varies in the afternoon. I thought is was kinda wierd though.

[the_real_lois_lane]

my college had bells, but it was only in certain buildings. and i went to a pretty big university here in TN.

they rang on MWF every 50 mins for classes and on Tues/Thurs they rang every 90 mins for classes. but again, this was only in a few buildings. and they weren't really bells...more like buzzers. and the teachers could choose to let you out or not based on them. most of the time they ignored them, though.

[ctjj.stevenson]

Concordia University does not have a bell, and neither did my CEGEP (collège d'éducation gérénal et professionnel).

I thought that it was an American thing. I guess that I was wrong.

[the_real_lois_lane]

i think it really depends on the size of the college/university you attend. at least in my experience, anyway.

[Ms.Lane]

That bothered me too because its NOT standard at colleges. In fact, its rare. My college does not have bells or buzzers--none that I know of do either. Its not high school people should be able to manage time without bells. They just use those in a TV show for an out so that a character doesn't have to answer a dramatic question asked of him as it so happened here. Bugged me a little.

[kryptonite-proof]

But as a handful of people here have indicated, some colleges do have bells. I go to a university of roughly 40,000 people, so obviously I'm not talking about a small college in my case. Of course, the professor still dismisses the class on their own whim, but bells still signal the official start/end of class.

In fact, many professors are so absent-minded, if there were no bell to indicate the end of class they would simply keep on teaching till someone stopped them.

[Vandal Savage]

We don't have bells at the university I attend.

What's even more strange though is that nobody finds it weird that a college professor actually knows a student's name. :D

[MsSullivan]

I laughed at this part. I wish we had bells cause i hate when profs. keep me after