Hey, we all have our moments. But at a college level, these things should definitely not have happened...oh poor kids.
Feelin’ The Sea Breeze
I overheard two students have the following conversation:
Student 1: Isn’t it awesome we get to live right by the ocean?!
Student 2: That’s not an ocean.
1: But it has a beach. If it’s not the ocean, what is it?
2: I don’t know.
I work in Chicago. Source
Learning From Your Mistakes
Word for word f—ing copying of an assignment. Even down to the other guy’s student number, spelling mistakes, and format. Source
It’s Arm Day Bro
TA here, my favorite was a student who came up to the professor after class and asked if he could take the quiz a day late because it was on arm day and his arms would be too tired to write. Source
Key Words: Cultural Awareness
We were having a lecture for a course about cultural awareness. The lecturer asks ‘Any Questions?’. One guy raises his hand and asks ‘Is the Murray River brown because Aborigines bathe in it?’. Source
Head Count
I was at a final, one time, and the professor was counting the students.
He then said “I printed off exactly enough tests, but there appears to be one more student than test. So, if you’re here, and have never seen my face, please leave.”
SOMEONE GOT UP AND LEFT
We are all very confused what that dude was thinking. Source
It Takes Some Time
I was a TA for Calculus II a few years back. One day, about four full weeks into the semester, a student came up to me during a quiz because he didn’t know his class number. After a few questions back and forth, I asked: “Are you sure you’re enrolled in Calculus II and not Calculus B? They’re two different classes.”
He crumpled up the quiz and threw it in the trash on his way out. I never saw him again. Source
AD
College course. Students are asked to estimate the date in which Attila took over Europe (it wasn’t a history class, the goal was showing that people’s estimates are influenced by those of the people around them). Except that the first girl said “6000”. When the professor said “6000? 6000 what?” she replied “AD”. Source
My Own Way Of Thinking
Here’s a story from one of my husband’s colleagues: After an exam, a student told the professor, “I didn’t know the answers to the essay questions, so I made up my own essay questions and answered them.” The professor replied, “That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard, and when I go to lunch, I’m going to tell all my friends.” Source
At Least He’s Creative
Not me, but my aunt has taught college and high school-level history courses.
She once assigned a paper on something to do with the role of rhetoric in the Roman Empire. I don’t remember the exact wording of her assignment, but it was something to this effect. A student, completely and entirely missing the point of the assignment, and possibly of the English language in general, spun an elaborate paper of the fictional life and military and political career of a Roman soldier, named Rhetoric.
My aunt still has the paper somewhere. It’s a hoot. Source
Not The Same Thing Kid, Not The Same
I was a TA in a college psychology class and one of the papers asked “How would you explain emotions to an alien from another planet who didn’t have any?” Some kid’s answer was how he’d explain emotions to a Chinese person. Source
Stolen Glass
TA for a glassblowing class my university has. So my school is very STEM focused, like 70% engineering majors, so there isn’t a lot of artistic talent among us but some people are really bad. So I had one guy who was struggling and no matter what I did he just wasn’t getting it, his pieces where generally very small, sloppy, asymmetrical, etc. So for his final he hands in this beautiful vase, cool colors, symmetric, nice size and weight. Well the professor was looking it over and giving her compliments except one problem. She had made it a few days before and it went missing from the shelf were we put pieces while we wait for people to pick them up. So the guy tries to turn in a piece made by the actual professor.
TL:DR Guy tries to hand in a glass art piece, tries to pass it off as his own, turn out the prof made it and he stole it and tried to give it back as his final. Source
Pre-Med With A Thinking Problem
Not me but a colleague. 2 students came to see him during office hrs with a complaint: “Your exams discriminate against students who can’t think.” He swears that’s a direct quote. I think they must’ve meant to say something like, “…can’t think under pressure,” but that’s not how it came out.
Out of morbid curiosity he asked them what their major was. Answer: “We’re both pre-med.” Yeah, you might wanna rethink that plan, kids….Source
Hidden Secret
Not a professor but was a grad student marking assignments.
Noticed some printed papers that were included as part of an assignment had a strange discoloration at the top. These were graphs generated by code you were to write, but since there was sample code available everyone’s papers looked pretty much the same if the individual didn’t feel like sprucing up their code and most didn’t really care about it.
Anyways, so I see a couple of these discolored papers and then eventually discover the source of the discoloration. One student had written their name at the top of their paper then whited it out before allowing his buddies to photocopy it before submitting it. You could get away with a lot, but that didn’t end well for them. Source
Pig Violence
Not a professor, but a graduate TA here. We gave an exam question where the students had to explain the difference between wild boars and domesticated pigs and how those traits reflect current theories of domestication. More than one student referred to the boars’ tusks as horns, but one particular student wrote the whole answer about how pigs lost their antlers due to domestication. Pig antlers!
As a note, I double checked and he was a native English speaker too, so this was not an issue of translation.Source
Someone’s Been Healthy
I was a college lab t.a. for many years and we used to actually keep a running log of all the stupid stuff students would do. My favorite to this day:
Student: T..A. my thermometer isn’t working can you please take a look.
Me: walk over and look at the set-up. Try not to burst out laughing.
“That’s a pipette, student, not a thermometer.”
He literally forgot what a thermometer looks like. Source
Saving Sarah
Not so much stupid as much as it was godamned hilarious. My wife and I (both professors) were crossing the quad after a meeting. A very frantic girl runs across campus, yelling into the phone, “…just delete the really naked ones.”
It’s my go-to ridiculous student story and I never even knew her name. Source
The Band Blues
Oh, let me count the ways.
I had a student miss his mid-term exam because, and I quote “I got fired from my band and I was too bummed out to come to school.”
I had another adult student (35) who pitched a fit during a meeting of students and teachers to figure out times for private lessons because he claimed we were disorganized. I got him calmed down enough to resume the scheduling, and then he went off again, ending with “If this had been the Marines someone would have been shot by now!”
Then there was the student who thought he was too cool for school and used to wear mirrored sunglasses all the time, as in in class, etc. One Monday he didn’t show up to class, and it turned out that over the weekend he’d been at a party where there was alcohol and it got raided by the cops. Since he was underage he tried to run for it, but since he was wearing his shades and it was at night he ran face first into a fence instead. Source