Academic time

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In front of the University of Lund in southern Sweden, this meridian plaque is set in to jokingly identify the “academic quarter”.

Academic times are the representation of a time at which appointments begin a quarter of an hour later than specified. These are particularly widespread at academic universities (“academic quarter hour” or “academic quarter” or “academic quarter”).

description

The “academic quarter” is the quarter of an hour that a lecture at a university begins later than specified in the course catalog. For example, a lecture that starts at 9 o'clock c. t. ( Latin : cum tempore 'with time'), actually only starts at 9:15 a.m. If an event is scheduled to begin at 9:00 am which is the time usually with 9:00 sec. t. (Latin: sine tempore 'without time'). The information c. t. and s. t. can also be omitted from the course catalog if the practice in the respective university is known and uniformly regulated.

While the academic quarter is common in Switzerland and Scandinavia , in most other countries the lectures start exactly at the announced time. In Austria , too , the academic quarter used to be common, now most lectures begin at the announced time. In Germany there are both universities where the academic quarter is common and those that generally start sine tempore . There are no systematic studies on which approach is now more common.

origin

For many centuries, lessons took place in the professors' private rooms, which were scattered throughout the university town. The main measure of time in the cities was determined by the chime of the tower clocks and later the hour of the wall clocks. After the hour had struck, the students still had time to make their way to the lectures.

In some courses, the recapitulation was added, i.e. the repetition of the material from the previous lecture before the new material was introduced. In this way, students who had already listened carefully to the previous lecture and did not need the repetition could come on their own a quarter of an hour later.

Notation using the example of 9 o'clock

  • 9 o'clock sine tempore (German without time) (abbreviated: 9 o'clock s. T. Or 9 h st) = 9:00 o'clock
  • 9 a.m. cum tempore (German with time) (abbreviated: 9 a.m. c. T. Or 9 h ct) = 9:15 a.m.
  • 9 a.m. magno cum tempore (German with a lot of time) (abbreviated: 9 a.m. with c. T. Or 9 h mct) = 9:30 a.m.
  • 9 o'clock maximo cum tempore (German with greatest time) (abbreviated: 9 o'clock mm. C. T. Or 9 h mmct) = 9:45 o'clock

The last two pieces of information are rarely found in practice today. The frequently used form magna cum tempore and the rare maxima cum tempore are grammatically incorrect, as tempus is a neuter of the consonant declension and the ablative of magnus and maximus is magno and maximo .

Extension of the term

At many universities where the c. t.-practice is widespread, the event ends a quarter of an hour before the time specified in the course catalog. This is the case if the courses are specified in the course catalog with two hours (e.g. from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. c. T.). Since lectures usually only last 90 minutes, there are breaks of 15 minutes before and after the event.

In some universities , it is also customary to include a 15-minute break within the 90-minute event, but this does not delay the end of the event at the specified time. This break is at the discretion of the lecturer.

Individual evidence

  1. c. t. and s. t. University of Hohenheim, accessed April 20, 2016 .
  2. a b Important terms during your studies. Studying A – Z, or: “Who is this NN?” Technical University of Brandenburg, archived from the original on April 28, 2016 ; Retrieved on April 28, 2016 (Could not be found under the link provided. The search returned the archive link above.).
  3. Glossary - M. University of Technology, Economics and Culture Leipzig , archived from the original on April 28, 2016 ; Retrieved April 28, 2016 .
  4. the custom: the academic quarter. In: arte . Retrieved June 26, 2016 .