My fellow Miserians,I swear that I just received this actual authentic email from a freshman. I haven't edited it except to hide my identity. I even checked the campus record system to make sure that dude actually exists and it's not one of my colleagues trying to push my buttons. I don't know what to say.
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Hello Sir.
I seem to have missed 14 hamsterology assignments. I have completed the two optional exercises. Is there any way I can make up for all of my incomplete assignments?
Stu Dent
Fuck.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet I'm reminded of a grad student to whom the math department wanted to award a PhD at the end of his first year in the program. Sometimes there's a student who can do 15 weeks of work in one day.
DeleteNevertheless... FUCK.
Yes, there might be people who can do 15 weeks of work in one day, but they're usually not the same people who discover, at the end of semester, that they "seem to have missed" just about every assignment they needed to do.
DeleteStu Dent is too Stu Pid for college, even Arizona State.
ReplyDeleteCompound Cal, Sun Devil.
DeleteI knew what I was getting into, though. Read about the school in Playboy.
Them's fightin' words, Strelly. Mah daddy done went tuh ASU, an' ah had me a full rahd thar. Din't tekkit, but ah had me one.
DeleteTruthfully, I had a blast at ASU. Met my wife there and we're still together 32 years later.
DeleteIt wasn't a very rigorous place for me and I flunked a lot of courses in the first couple of years. But I found my love of reading and writing there from a couple of amazing professors (John Doebler and Marianna Brose), and the weather was fantastic. Much much fun and a gorgeous place.
I was a much better student in grad school, and went places where I actually knew something about the academics. I've sometimes made jokes at my own expense about going to such a party school, but I had a lot of fun there and I can't imagine I wouldn't do it all again.
Shoot me now.
ReplyDeleteDear Stu Dent,
ReplyDeleteNo.
Another product of high school catch-up-by-the-end-of-grading-period policies, I assume.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, of course, the answer is "no." In composition, the unspoken answer is "hell, no, because I don't want to spend the break putting together a packet for the honor committee after you plagiarize, deliberately or out of ignorance of the material some of those 14 assignments covered."
Stu reminds me of a student in a course I taught many years ago. It included 2 lab tests and this kid hands in his second report with much of the required data missing. I wasn't surprised as he rarely showed up for lectures. He wasn't happy that I penalized him for it. Apparently, he expected me to track him down and ask him why the data was missing.
ReplyDeleteI'd hate to see what he was like on the job. He probably expected full pay for work that was only half-completed.
Gaaaaaaah! Just this post sent me into a frenzy of NO NO NO NO NO!!!!!
ReplyDeleteAlas, our esteemed college has deemed that we do, actually, have to accept assignments up until the day of the final. All of them. Who cares if we were trying to teach the little dears about deadlines. So after grading the results of the more honest types, if Stu Dent can manage to get them to sell him their results, he can hand in all the exercises at the end of the term. So what did we decide to do, the brave teachers of underwater hamster fur weaving?
ReplyDeleteAssignments are now voluntary, they don't count diddly squat. It's all about the final exam, and orals.
I need to start a retirement clock...