As a matter of interest, when I was at college, we were mistakenly sent to the heavy machines lab one class a week - and one of the things we did there was phase shift - using a capacitor and a resistor. The capacitor and resistor were on wheels, probably 3 feet tall, and a foot square! - to power them we used three phase mains (440V) from bare brass, unswitched, screw terminals on the walls!.
After a few weeks of this, when they had us dropping magnets in coils and watching galvanometers go 'wheeeeeeee' I had had enough!. The lecturer came across and said "what are you doing", and I said "I'm not doing this load of old crap, I did this back in the 1st form at secondary school!" - at this point he went a funny colour and stormed out, presumably to have me taken out and hanged!!.
Anyway, the outcome was that it was all a terrible mistake, and they had sent us to the wrong class - yet no one else complained, including those who were in their EIGHTH year there! (day release, not full time), it was my third year!.