It sounds wonderful, R. The class auditing, I mean. Oh my state university library was wonderful. It shared the building with the bursar's office and had the entire top floor to itself and half the lower level. Sometimes I'd just pop in and read the newspaper. They'd actually lend out computer programs, so I'd use MathCAD to crunch data for my tedious physics labs.

I audited classes while enrolled as a full time student, and I'd participate only if the professor got no response from anyone else. Certainly I'd skip midterm and final exams, but I don't remember skipping class for a quiz.

Once during an Open House at my daughter's college, I audited one lecture. The professor asked a question, something like, "What can an indigenous population do to avoid colonization when a foreign-run companies build and open manufacturing plants?" One girl with a stutter suggested sabotage (The Luddite response). Then crickets. But then the professor looked right at me and faintly raised one eyebrow, so I thanked her and suggested education and training to learn the "imperialist's" language with the dual aim of finding employment within the factories, (perhaps even learning how to service the products and automation) and navigating international law. We were, after all, in an institute of higher learning, so I figured that was a home-run answer. The professor passed no judgement on either response.