I'm surprised to see that the increased use of electronics in lectures hasn't started to make people doubt the merits of the lecture system itself. In my opinio

I'm surprised to see that the increased use of electronics in lectures hasn't started to make people doubt the merits of the lecture system itself. In my opinion, university has two main benefits: learning and socialization with like-minded people. Even before the occurrence of laptops and tablets, I always thought that lectures are a terribly inefficient way of achieving either of those goals. If I want to learn something, I go pick up a book and read it myself, at my own pace. On the socialization side, a 30-to-1 forced conversation that takes 3 hours (or 1 hour, depending on the length of the lecture) is silly. Besides, I've seen very few professors who come to class to engage their students in a conversation; most just come with a set of slides and do a 3-hour slide-assisted monologue. I have always found the latter boring. I think universities need to get rid of lectures, and start to focus more on dynamic, spontaneous interactions between students and professors. For example, instead of having a 3-hours lecture every week, the professor could have 15 10-minute office hours sessions in his office.