I’m sitting here, masquerading as a Notre Dame student for an hour and I’m impressed by the following: These students are really sharp at keying on things that sound like they should be important, even if they really aren’t all that important. I think they’re doing it by listening (probably instinctively after 13+ years of formal education) to the voice inflection of the professor.

What i mean by this is that every time the professor makes what sounds like a verbal queue that “something important is coming,” a long pause for example, it’s like the whole room takes a collective deep breath.

“A div tag.” Says the professor, to the sound of 50 keyboard simultaneously clacking out the last spoken sentence.

With a roomful of loud Dell keyboards the effect is even more pronounced.