If you're bright and motivated, and can learn a lot on your own, you can learn even more when you are with people who already are knowledgeable. I don't know why people don't do this. If you go to class, read more than what the teacher assigns, and think of interesting questions, the teacher will talk to you and give you insight, even if that teacher is teaching a 300 person lecture.
I don't see how you can advocate self directed learning, and yet in the same breath suggest that a person with such self motivation and discipline would somehow drudge along with the rest of the class.
You don't have any choice but to drudge along. The pace of the lectures is set before the class starts. If you're the kind of student that can race ahead on his own speed through the text then why do you need the lectures?
I was in a lot of 100-300 person classes and there were always at least 10-20 people chasing after the lecturer at the end of every class. You were damn lucky if you got more than 2 questions in the whole semester. Upper level classes were better, of course.
The professors I had were always excited to help students who wanted to run ahead of or branch out from the lecture schedule. Catch them in their office when it's not just before or just after class.
I think the real problem, at least here in the U.S., is that most people learn next to nothing in high school so they have to spend 1-2 years in college in huge auditorium classes catching up.
If you want to fix college you first have to fix high school.
You don't have any choice but to drudge along, but you have a lot of choice in what you do with the rest of your time. Start knocking on doors and you'll find a lot of receptive people for all kinds of things. And you'll find part of the reason they're so receptive is that nobody is ever knocking on their doors....
I'm strongly of the opinion that conventional universities are all but doomed on the 20-year timeframe, and I am of the opinion that it will broadly be a gain, but I do not deny that we will lose some things. This is one of them. But already virtually nobody takes advantage of this, so I can't find it in myself to cry to much about it. (Can't say I did as much as I could have, either.)
I don't see how you can advocate self directed learning, and yet in the same breath suggest that a person with such self motivation and discipline would somehow drudge along with the rest of the class.