Let it All Out. We Come Here to Feel Better. If It Helps To Tell Them to Catch a Greyhound, Then We're Right There With You!

• No, sweetie, you cannot take the final now that you missed it. I'm sorry that your scatter brained roommate told you the final was tomorrow and not yesterday. The exam schedule was published at the beginning of the semester and the exam time was announced about five times in class. The fact that you can't read, listen or use a computer on your own tells me something. Oh, and please make good on your threat and leave the college. Your five professors of this most recent semester will buy you a bus ticket.


• I really am sorry that you are experiencing personal difficulties this semester that are causing you to behave in an academically uncharacteristic manner. I’m sure you’ve been an academic powerhouse in every other course you’ve ever taken, but, in my class you suck. I don’t consider your past performance in other classes to be reason enough to spend time coming up with (and grading) “extra assignments” for you when you have not demonstrated the ability to complete “the” assignments. You know, the ones the rest of the class did.


• I’m sorry, but I just don’t know how to make “it” any clearer. I don’t even know why you don’t get “it.” The rest of the class gets “it.” I’m not telling them anything different than I’m telling you. In fact, I’m telling you more because you come to office hours or approach me after class. I’m happy to do that, though. I will not, however, prepare extra special notes just for you, that spells “it” out exactly as it will appear on the final. I’ve walked you through “it” many, many times. I’m afraid if you still don’t get “it”, you will just have to accept that you will get that question wrong on the final and move on with your life.


• Twice now you have made appointments with me to come to my office to “discuss your paper.” Twice now you have stood me up like an ugly prom date. I don’t really mind as I have other work to do, but please don’t email me after final grades are posted asking why you got a D and begging me to change your grade. My answer will be no.


• I know that you're planning on graduating this semester, but when I repeatedly tell you that you have something wrong and need to change it, and then you steadfastly refuse to do so because that would necessitate more work for you, you forfeit my sympathy. Trying to take the "easy way out" on your senior thesis is not a good idea.


• Hey, jackass, your golf coach sends around a list of all the days you are permitted by the college to miss class for golf. Therefore I am QUITE SURE that those other 5 or so days (making it 13 in total) you missed for golfing must have been FOR FUNSIES. Or sleeping. Or drunk. Don't care. Unexcused.


• "But, Professor! I didn't plagiarize! I paid someone to write the essay for me, and that person plagiarized!"


• Yes, my late penalties are stiff but I have laid them out in the syllabus, which you received on the first day of class and is also available on the webpage. You were gracious enough to admit that you had no good reason your paper was late. It was “personal reasons” and not excusable. I admired you for your candor. However, this is a small campus and I also heard that you were drunk off your proverbial arse Friday night, unable to get out of bed for an athletic team trip Saturday morning, making them late for the game. Was the assignment a "waste of time" as you said before you tossed it into the garbage can? Why yes, it was. For me.


• A student came to me after a report was due and said he wasn't able to turn it in on time because he couldn't get it printed. Our school had just switched from a free-printing campus to a pay-per-print campus, so some students got caught unawares that they had to now pay for printing. In an effort to be helpful, I told the student that he could print the report out on my printer. He replied, "Oh, I haven't written it yet."


• Okay, I admit it. This was a film class. We watched films, discussed films, researched films, critiqued films. How absolutely mean of me to show a film for the final exam on which you would be tested. I know, I am a son of a bitch.


• I'm awfully glad you love Jesus and want everyone else to love him like you do. The paper was not on Jesus but on Islam. Can you understand that? It was a World Religions course and not a course in loving Jesus. Your paper never mentioned Islam once. That's why you got an F and not because I hate Jesus.