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At UCLA, on the last day of class, it is customary for students to applaud at the conclusion of lecture. This phenomenon is rather mystifying.

It would seem that most of the time students are not merely clapping out of joy for their excellent professors. Instead it’s some sort of ritual. By exploring this social convention, perhaps we can learn new things about the hearts and minds (and souls) of UCLA students.

“Students do it more for just convention and tradition,” said fourth-year history student Carly Grovhoug. “It’s become such a normal thing that if you didn’t, it would be a blow to the professor. I’ve never been in a class that didn’t have it, but there have been classes with standing ovations.”

History lecturer Gabriel Wolfenstein said it seems that students applaud because it is expected, or that students might even feel that end-of-class applause is mandatory.

“But it can be spontaneous as well, though there are no hard and fast rules to determine when the applause is heartfelt as opposed to merely obligatory,” Wolfenstein said. “It’s something you can more or less sense. To put it another way, sometimes students clap because that’s what you do at the end of the course, and sometimes they applaud because the class has been meaningful and you the teacher have connected with them in some way.”

Conceivably, the standing ovations that Grovhoug has witnessed have been given to professors who are truly loved. But then, maybe a normal applause indicates that students are just being polite. Of course, no applause at all must mean something fantastically terrible for a professor.

“It didn’t happen in one of my classes and it was really awkward,” said fourth-year history student Nate Thompson. “Everyone hated this professor and it was kind of unspoken, and when she said, ‘OK, thanks class,’ and walked out, there was deafening silence. You could hear crickets chirp and cell phones vibrate.”

I should make it clear that I don’t make a habit of clapping at the conclusion of the final lecture, unless it is truly warranted. Thompson echoed that sentiment.

“I don’t clap for anybody – they should clap for me for coming to their (expletive) class,” Thompson said.

Thompson’s words made me think. As students, we are essentially paying the professors for a service. When your friendly Starbucks barista makes you a hot chocolate, you do not shower him with plaudits, do you? Would it not be strange if that were a social norm?

While it is clear that applause for professors is a regular thing, it’s another story for teaching assistants at the conclusion of their discussion sections. Wolfenstein said that he has received applause at the end of almost every course he has taught, but that it has been different for his sections.

“TAing is a little different,” Wolfenstein said. “I think the received wisdom – that you applaud at the end of a course – is more unclear with sections. And at least for me, when I TA’d, things were more variable, though the section applauded more often than not.”

So while it is customary at UCLA to applaud at the end of the last lecture, and maybe even in the last meeting of the discussion section, this is not the case at other schools across the country. For example, at Duke, no such thing is done. Instead, Dukies have a different way of ending their terms.

“Everyone is drunk in class on the last day; they bring their drinks to class because it’s an open campus,” said Eliza Pike, a third-year Japanese and public policy student at Duke. “You bring your plastic cup to class.”

At least UCLA’s social convention is not as weird as clapping at the end of a movie. That seems completely pointless – it is not like Bruce Willis can hear you. It must occur because people want to show the other patrons in the theater that they enjoyed the film. But when people clap, it always embarrasses me, and I will never understand why it’s done.

“At one level, it’s certainly a bit bizarre. ... And it would be rather strange to clap in front of the television,” Wolfenstein said.

So in comparison, clapping in class is not that strange. But when it’s simply done out of habit, it’s certainly a bit peculiar.

However, some students have a completely different theory for the applause phenomenon – which may ring true with many students during finals week.

“We clap to celebrate the fact that we don’t have to listen to that (expletive) anymore,” said Alex Brizolis, a fourth-year political science student.

In this column, two students used the word (expletive). That’s how you know it’s finals week.

E-mail Miller at dmiller@media.ucla.edu.