5/06/2009 03:48:00 PM

Creative excuses I've heard during my teaching career

Here are all the popular excuses I've gotten so far from undergraduates, hoping that I will give them a grade they didn't work for, in order of WTF ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!:

  1. Death of a loved one - "I thought it'd be ok for us to plagarize off of each other, since our relative/friend/significant other passed away, and we were so stressed out. We were sure you'd understand!"
  2. I am in therapy - "I am hoping you may pass me with a temporary fail and grant me sufficient time to rectify my situation. Attached is an insanely general and vague email from some therapist with a Masters degree in EDUCATION saying that I have depression and anxiety issues, and therefore should be excused from missing all the labs this semester, not responding to your emails, ignoring my warning grade, and not bothering to come to you until there is one week left in the semester."
  3. I am a senior - "I know I was a total slacker this semester, but oh I am a senior and oh this is the last class I need to graduate and oh if you can just give me at least a C or something even though I know I don't deserve it and oh if you can just do that I would be eternally grateful to you and will sing your praises to all humanity and name my firstborn after you oh I would so appreciate it."
  4. It's Sakai's fault - "Professor Grace I swear I submitted all my assignments on time, I don't know why Sakai rejected all my assignments, I didn't know until I checked today that I got Fails in all my work (even though you told us to check routinely and come speak to you with any discrepancies), but yeah well here is what I have and I hope you'll just take all my work that's 10 weeks late and give me a good grade, kthxbye."

I'm sure as I teach I'll get increasingly creative ones. Looking forward to it!

2 comments:

Crystal Chen said...

hahaha. at least you're not teaching high school where this happens...

me: "this is not your handwriting. it clearly changes from page 1 to 2. "

student: "oh my mom just decided to copy my homework over for me because it was messy before...so she wanted to make it neater. that's why it is in a different handwriting."

A said...

these are great!

i heard an urban legend type thing that if your roommate dies you get all A's for that semester because it's so traumatizing. i guess it's not true.

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