A student stares blankly at the chalkboard, mind wandering and focus adrift. Her head bobs up and down as she fights the urge to sleep through another class.

Professors like Gabriel Holbrook have seen many students’ attention flitter away during class.

“Students read the newspaper, check their cell-phone messages, pick their noses … I’ve seen it all,” said Holbrook, an associate professor of biological sciences.

There are a number of reasons students give for being bored in class.

“I start wondering why I’m taking this class and I zone out,” said Richard Chen, a pre-elementary education transfer student.

Chen said he gets bored when he already knows the material.

Victoria VanDyke, a freshman English major, said she often struggles with class boredom.

“The teachers don’t make class interesting, they should do something other than lecture,” VanDyke said.

She said teachers should have students create presentations or participate in activities so they feel more involved in the class.

Students also become bored when the teacher is difficult to understand or speaks in a monotone.

“I get bored mainly in math because I can’t always understand what the teacher is talking about,” said Paul Kerwin, a sophomore physical education major.

He said he sometimes walks out of the class because he is so bored.

“A lot of my teachers speak in monotone, so it’s not very exciting,” said freshman psychology major Jamie Castillo.

Many students find themselves in situations like these as they try to fight off class boredom. Some pass the time by doodling.

“My entire mythology notebook is covered in doodles,” Castillo said.

Once a student of Holbrook’s appeared to be concentrating very hard on taking notes. He said he thought she was really paying attention, but when he passed by her desk, she was actually drawing an elaborate landscape.

Sometimes Holbrook tries to combat boredom by giving students a short break.

“If a class I teach is longer than 50 minutes, I try to give students a two-minute break,” Holbrook said.

Other professors bring food to class to hold their students’ focus. Richard Hahin, an associate professor of biological sciences, said he used to give his students food when he taught longer classes.

Hahin taught a two-and-a-half hour evening class once a week and would sometimes have pizza delivered.

“I stopped doing that because they’d all start falling asleep,” Hahin said.

While Holbrook says it’s hard to lecture when he sees students aren’t interested, he said he is sensitive to his students being bored.

“Some professors think it’s the student’s problem if they’re bored and that we’re not here for entertainment. I try to put myself in the position of the student,” Holbrook said. “I remember being a student myself, and some professors were boring while others were interesting.”

Although students may get bored in lecture classes, the material in general education classes are part of a core education, Holbrook said. For example, the biology genetics unit can be helpful to students in the future if they want to have children.

“It may not be interesting at the time, but it can be useful to you later,” Holbrook said.