Students actually take notes until professor excuses them
A professor became enraged one day when his students began packing up when there were approximately three minutes of class left. He was getting to the most important part of an organic chemistry reaction when he heard a chorus of backpack zippers, shuffling papers and creaking desks.
“This is going to be on your midterm! This is important stuff!” he huffed at his pupils. The sounds of packing up subsided for about four seconds before crescendoing into a deafening roar. He couldn’t have told his students about aldehyde even if he had screamed the rest of the lesson. With his cheeks puffed out and his face as red as a Unitrans bus, the professor vowed to never let this happen again.
At the next lecture, when the disgruntled professor first heard the telltale thump! of a Macbook Pro being closed at 11:56 a.m., he cleared his throat and said, “Class is over when I say it’s over!”
The students looked around in shock. How bold! How daring! They slowly re-opened their laptops, put away their Hydroflasks and turned their attention towards their professor. It worked! thought the professor, rubbing his hands together like a cartoon villain. He resumed the lecture.
“So! If you want to get this Mannich reaction problem right on your midterm, you’ve gotta draw the arrow like so…” He finished writing out the solution, but to his pupils’ shock, he continued teaching.
“Now, I know you all want to leave, but there’s gonna be a lot of material on this upcoming midterm, and I just want to make sure we cover it all before next class.” He introduced a different problem. Soon the minute hand reached 12, but the professor kept going. His students, glued to their seats by his magic words, continued to take notes.
“…And that’s how you make a phenol,” he said. “Goodness gracious, look at the time! I seem to have gotten a little carried away there, my apologies. But please DO NOT pack up when I am teaching. It’s disrespectful.”
The students checked their phones, and to their horror, it was the year 2028.
“I know it took a little extra time to get through those last few topics, but I still expect you all to know how to solve these problems on next week’s exam,” the professor said. “Thank you for your patience.”
Written by: Madeline Kumagai — mskumagai@ucdavis.edu
(This article is humor and/or satire, and its content is purely fictional. The story and the names of “sources” are fictionalized.)
