High-level seminar talks

Recently, my department had a seminar speaker with a very important role at a major science funding agency. Research of many of us has been supported by said agency through grant proposals, fellowships, etc.

I have always thought that the benefit of having such a known/distinguished speaker is that the talks are high-level and forward-looking. But today, I observed the crowd in the large yet overfilled room to notice the following:

• The undergrads were nodding off;
• The grad students were mostly paying attention, although some were definitely browsing;
  
• The profs were all, for a change, listening attentively, and none (!) were typing away on their laptops (while at most technical talks they are. Typing, typing, typing).

That's quite different from what happens at technical talks. Perhaps the undergrads (and some grad students) are not yet able to appreciate the Vision of the Future*. Perhaps the faculty is paying attention out of respect and to get a glimpse into what kinds of things they should be writing to motivate their next big proposals. And perhaps some of us grad students just think it is amazing that someone can have that kind of an outlook for our discipline, while giving a fun and interactive talk.

*And an undergrad who sat slept through the talk right next to me copied from the first slide the speaker's name and which R1 he's a prof at. And blatantly skipped the speaker's high position at the funding agency. Don't undergrads know who pays for research around here?