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College Professors Share Their Funniest 'I Don't Know How You Made It Out Of High School' Experiences

College Professors Share Their Funniest 'I Don't Know How You Made It Out Of High School' Experiences
Image by Foundry Co from Pixabay

Now that college has become a standard requirement for so many jobs and careers, there is a massive push by high schools to get their graduating students accepted and enrolled at an undergraduate college.

On the whole, that's undoubtedly a great thing. A more educated workforce will be prepared to solve the most complex issues facing human beings in the next several decades.


But there are some pitfalls to the great college push. I barely need to mention the student loan debt crisis.

However, there's another concerning dynamic. Students are herded through the high school-to-college track so automatically that actually educating can take a backseat to logistical considerations.

So when that young adult lands in a college classroom, they're liable to be hopelessly unprepared for the education they're paying for.

Some Redditors shared examples.

redmambo_no6 asked, "College professors of Reddit, what's your 'I'm surprised you made it out of high school' story?"

Many people simply never learned how to effectively convey their thoughts through writing.

Research methods and essay writing are apparently common areas where college students show some serious gaps in knowledge and preparedness.

Dates on Dates on Dates 

"As a college freshman, I took Advanced English with a student who didn't know how to write a research paper or even possibly read (I don't know). When I realized she didn't know how to research, I gave her my sources and showed her how to navigate them."

"The next class when we were supposed to edit each other's rough drafts. I handed her my paper to edit, she gave it back to me after 10 seconds without reading it and said it was good."

"She then handed me her 'paper' and it was just a list of random dates."

-- JustEnoughDarkToSee

The Wrong Paper to Butcher

"In grad school we had to do weekly presentations on individual scientific studies within the focus of our thesis and this one girl was completely bombing on a study about biomechanics."

"The professor gently tried to guide her to a different conclusion and she began to argue with him."

"That's when the professor asked her to read out loud the authors of the study and, of course, he was the lead author. She unknowingly chose to butcher a study that her own professor authored..."

-- cjdking

The Be All End All 

"Not a college professor, but I worked in my university's writing center for a while."

"I had a girl come in with a research paper bibliography that listed 'my mom' as a source several times."

"When I pressed, she told me her mom looked up everything and sent it to her and she just...put it in the paper. She told me she had always done it that way."

-- SalemScout

Sloppy Writing, Everywhere You Look 

"I worked at my university writing center and saw a lot of really terrible writing. SO MANY poorly written essays. I really don't know how you can graduate from high school without at least being able to perform simple tasks like 'Point to your thesis statement.' "

"The whole point of a writing center was to teach students to correct their own work, but there was a direct correlation between how awful a paper was and how likely the student was to throw it at you and say 'I'm going to go have lunch. Will you have it fixed in an hour?' then try to leave."

"The tutors all got really good at an authoritative, 'Stop right there! Sit down. Now let's talk about how YOU are going to improve YOUR paper.' "

"The most frustrating papers were the science majors. I could never tell if the paper was terrible or I just wasn't following the details of their experiment on chlorinated aliphatic hydrocarbons or whatever."

"The absolute worst was the ENGLISH MASTERS DEGREE STUDENT who came in several times with absolute gibberish. To be fair, English was his second language but... are you absolutely sure you do not want to consider a career change, my good sir?"

-- hananobira

Other students showed a complete lack of historical knowledge.

Of course, not everyone is a history buff. Not everyone will know about the finer details of an obscure era, region, or event.

But goodness, some of the obvious ones should be clear to most.

Gorillas at War 

"Not me, but a friend who taught in the politics department received a paper about 'gorilla' warfare in South America."

"It was so poorly written she couldn't tell if it was a typo, or if they genuinely thought Colombia had been overrun by a Planet of the Apes style revolution."

-- ZoeAWashburne

A Very Old Country 

"My graduate school classmate wrote 'America is a country that has been around for thousands of years.' "

"It was a group paper on social policy."

-- psnugbootybug

Wrong Guy 

"I once got an exam essay that mentioned how much Mandela hated the Jews. After scratching my head for a bit and wondering if I'd missed some obvious signs of his anti-Semitism I realized she meant Mengele."

"As in Josef Mengele, the Nazi 'Angel of Death.' Hard to think of a worse person she could've confused him for."

-- WhiskyTangoNovember

Time Scales 

"Not a professor but in undergrad I was taking an American history course. Our professor was from Maryland and was probably in her early forties."

"This kid asked her if she was one of the pearl harbor survivors. He couldn't grasp the fact that she was very much not alive at that time and that Pearl Harbor was not a harbor in Maryland."

-- Whowhatwherewhenwhy6

And last, some college professors were simply shocked by a complete lack of fundamental logical thinking. They couldn't believe people made it so far.

After all, one does need to put two and two together just to navigate basic daily life, right?

Measuring is for Nerds 

"For a couple years I taught first-year college students in an ENGINEERING program, the majority of whom didn't know how to do unit conversions."

"Not even, like, inches-to-centimeters. To repeat ... college ... ENGINEERING ..."

-- JSanzi

That's the Whole Thing 

"I once spent an hour explaining to college junior that an even number is divisible by 2." -- KingofSheepX

"wh-, what? how? literally the definition of an even number is a number that's evenly divisible by 2. what?" -- TheDonutPug

"Not as big of a deal, but in freshman year, I was the only one out of me and a few friends (including a math major) who knew 0 was even" -- StaleTheBread

Convenient Reasoning 

"My first year teaching I had a student who had failed the previous year due to missing too many cooking labs to pass and not handing in half the assignments."

"I had rewritten the curriculum and assignments."

"I noticed that this student hadn't been handing certain things in and had been skipping my lectures, so I decided to have a chat with them."

"They thought their marks for that semester were cumulative with their previous year's mark (with a different curriculum, different assignments, and a different professor) so they just had to make up enough marks to get a passing grade."

"This is a post-grad program. They had a BSc in dietetics."

-- PM_ME__RECIPES

LISTEN 

"Not a professor, but I used to TA for undergrad organic chem lab courses. Had a... challenging student once who was not great at reading directions or thinking critically. We were setting up an experiment that required GENTLE heating of a volatile solvent.""I explicitly told the class, multiple times, 'only turn your hot plates up to 2 when heating, these things get very hot." Maybe 30 minutes later I'm making my rounds through the lab and I pass said guy's fume hood and notice his reaction is smoking.""I look closer and see that all of the liquid in his flask is gone and its just a charred, black smoking mess (which is still heating). I ask, "Student! What's going on with your reaction??? What's the temperature set at?!" "The guy goes, oh, I wasn't sure how hot to heat it, so I just turned the plate all the way up to 10. Is my reaction going to be ok?' No, no man, it's not going to be ok... he literally boiled the thing dry 🙄"

-- jpiethescienceguy

Validation

"From a friend who is an economics professor: a week after a midterm, a student came up to my friend and said she took longer on the midterm than expected, didn't have enough money in the meter to cover the additional time, and got a parking ticket as a result."

"She asked my friend who in the department should she submit the ticket to for reimbursement"

-- tremendothegreat

All Over the Place 

"I had a student who didn't know what the stapler was or how to use it. I accepted his assignment as separate pages."

"Unsurprisingly, his writing was similarly disjointed."

-- Hollywood_Dog

Please DO NOT Eat the DNA

"I was a TA for two years. One of my students (outside of class) explained that she and her whole family truly believes that microwaves mutate the DNA of your food (they don't) and mutated DNA is dangerous to eat (it wouldn't be)."

"I couldn't help myself for calling her out. It was such a strange thing that it didn't even occur to me to be sensitive. I just said she clearly needed to take my biology class again."

-- king063

Keeping It Casual

"I had a student include numerous emojis in a term paper."

"A different student came to my office a week after the final, and asked me why she had failed the course. She hadn't turned in a single assignment, or written the final."

-- Art--Vandelay--


So, yes, it is very possible to find yourself encountering someone with a puzzling lack of knowledge or intelligence throughout daily, adult life.

This list should hammer home just how common that will be.

Want to "know" more? Never miss another big, odd, funny, or heartbreaking moment again. Sign up for the Knowable newsletter here.

Bizarre Historical Facts They Never Taught Us In School
Photo by Austin Lowman on Unsplash

We can't learn everything in school, and maybe that's a good thing—because these bizarre historical facts are too weird for a textbook. Like Abraham Lincoln's other assassination, Thomas Edison's little-known dark side, or Mozart's obsession with butts...and that's just naming a few. Strap in for this VERY strange ride.

1. Queen Elizabeth Had A Nasty Mouth

Although dental hygiene was not necessarily at its peak in Tudor England, Queen Elizabeth I’s fondness for sweets gave her pearly whites an even darker tone...in fact, her chompers were probably very black. More than that, since sugar was a luxury, some women then blackened their teeth both to emulate their queen and show off their wealth.

2. Thomas Edison Was Evil

The famous inventor Thomas Edison had a huge dark side not many people know about. For example, he used electricity to publicly kill animals. He wanted to show how alternating current was more dangerous than the "direct" current that he used. On one occasion, he used A/C to execute a rogue circus elephant named "Topsy" in front of thousands of people.

3. Alexander The Great's Mother Was Scary

File:Cassandre et Olympia-Jean Joseph Taillasson mg 8223.jpg ...commons.wikimedia.org

Queen Olympias was Alexander the Great's mother, and she was even more ruthless than her son. On one occasion, she sent a captive enemy queen a cup of poison, a noose, and a sword...then told her to choose how she would die. According to history, the woman chose to hang herself, though she cursed Olympias to the very end of her life.

4. Napoleon Used His Wife As A "Womb"

Napoleon Bonaparte famously adored his wife Josephine, but few people remember the dark end of their love affair. Tragically, Josephine couldn't have children, so Napoleon made a hard choice: He divorced Josephine and took up with Marie-Louise of Austria. Napoleon reportedly told his blushing bride straight off, “It is a womb that I am marrying.”

5. Ernest Hemingway Almost Died In Back-To-Back Plane Crashes

In 1954, the macho writer Ernest Hemingway got into a plane crash. He miraculously survived, but that was just the start of the nightmare. When he tried to take another plane to get medical help, that plane exploded upon taking off. Hemingway managed to survive again. Talk about bad luck. Or wait a minute...actually, is that good luck?

6. King Edward VIII Was A Colossal Jerk

King Edward VIII and Mrs Simpson on holiday in Yugoslavia,… | Flickrwww.flickr.com

King Edward VIII lost his brother Prince John at a young age from a severe seizure. The boy had suffered from epilepsy and other ailments for years, but Edward’s response was so disturbing, it’s impossible to forget. He referred to John’s passing as “little more than a regrettable nuisance.”

7. The FBI Knew About Pearl Harbor

The FBI ignored compelling evidence about the attack on Pearl Harbor because they didn’t trust the Serbian double agent Dusan Popov, who was apparently a gambling, lustful lush. Dusan's nickname around town was "tricycle" because of his infamous love of threesomes. Unsurprisingly, he was one of the inspirations for Ian Fleming’s James Bond.

8. There Were Original "Siamese Twins"

Two Siam natives, Chang and Eng Bunker, were American twins joined at the sternum. During the American Civil War in 1865, Eng’s name was drawn in a draft lottery, but not Chang's. There was little the conscription officials could do: The brothers were not only joined at the sternum, but their livers were also fused. Neither twin served in the conflict.

9. Ben Franklin Had Bodies In His Basement

File:Joseph Siffrein Duplessis - Benjamin Franklin - Google Art ...en.wikipedia.org

While renovating his home into a museum, researchers made a horrific discovery at Ben Franklin's house. They found 10 bodies in the founding father's basement. This led to speculation he may have been a serial killer. However, the bodies were more likely cadavers used for the anatomical studies of one of Franklin’s friends.

10. You Can Use Honey For Some Messed-Up Activities

King Herod, the tyrant king of Judea, had his wife, Mariamne I, preserved in honey after her death. Herod ordered her execution, but found her too beautiful to bury and so kept and preserved her body for seven years. Herod suffered from paranoid delusions, rage, and arteriosclerosis, but his death in 4 BCE came at the hands of a mysterious and agonizing illness that modern doctors are still not able to identify.

At one point, the pain was so excruciating, the king attempted to take his own life. The illness came to be known, among the Judean people, as “Herod’s Evil.”

11. Abraham Lincoln Cheated Death Once

Abraham Lincoln was almost killed two years before he was assassinated. Late one August evening in 1863, Lincoln rode alone by horse to his family’s summer residence. A private at the gate heard a shot ring out and, moments later, a bareheaded Lincoln clinging to his steed galloped into the yard. Lincoln explained that gunfire at the foot of the hill had sent his horse into a frenzied gallop, running so fast that it knocked his hat off.

The two men retrieved Lincoln’s hat, which had a bullet hole in it. Lincoln asked the guards to keep the incident quiet because he didn’t want to worry his wife...

12. Public Beddings Were A Thing

File:Catherine de Médicis - entourage de François Clouet.jpg ...commons.wikimedia.org

Catherine de Medici was only 14 when she married Henri, the son of King Francis. And although she was young, the King and other older men insisted on watching the consummation of the marriage.

13. The Most Ruthless French Queen

The Tour de Nesle affair was a scandal in the French royal family in 1314. In it, Queen Isabella of England accused her sisters-in-law of adultery. The scandal led to the imprisonment of the women and the execution of their lovers. The lovers were then executed. Most histories agree that they were first castrated and then drawn and quartered.

14. Marie Curie Slowly Killed Herself

Marie Curie, the chemist who conducted pioneering research on radioactivity, was completely in the dark when it came to the dangers of radioactive materials. Though she and her husband both suffered from chronic pain, neither considered that it was their radioactive substance-handling that was the cause. It was. Some of their original lab equipment is still so radioactive that we cannot safely view or study them.

15. George Bush Coined An Unfortunate Word

File:George H. W. Bush presidential portrait (cropped 2) (a).jpg ...commons.wikimedia.org

After George Bush Sr. vomited on the Japanese Prime Minister, the Japanese invented a new word: Bushusuru. This means to “do the Bush thing” or to “publicly vomit.”

16. Gandhi Liked To Tempt Himself With Young Women

Today we see Gandhi as a figure of peaceful protest and understanding. But there's a side of him no one knows. At the age of 36, while married, Gandhi became more and more obsessed with lust. In order to train and “perfect” his control over his desires, Gandhi would sleep undressed with young women. But one night, he committed an act so heinous that it made his own staff member quit on him forever.

Gandhi had performed this sleeping act with his own grand-niece named Manu. His stenographer left in disgust.

17. The Most Notorious Hollywood Eccentric

Howard Hughes was one of the most successful men of his time, producing many famous movies and dating Hollywood's most beautiful women. However, later in life, he became a complete hermit. Hughes spent his days in hotels, refusing to make eye contact with his aides. He also stopped bathing completely. Even more gross? He only cut his hair and nails cut once a year.

18. Nero Hated His Mother

File:15-07-05-Schloß-Caputh-RalfR-N3S 1528.jpg - Wikimedia Commonscommons.wikimedia.org

According to one ancient historian, the mad Emperor Nero tried and failed several times to kill his mother Agrippina the Younger, each time trying to up the ante. First, he tried to poison her on several occasions, but she always took an antidote each time. Then, he constructed a machine that would collapse her bedroom ceiling on her while she slept, but she caught wind of the plot and escaped.

Finally, he—seriously—invented a collapsible boat that would drown her while she was on a pleasure cruise. Reader, SHE STILL SURVIVED.

19. Grace Kelly Was A Homewrecker

Grace Kelly has a pristine, princess-like reputation in Hollywood, but nothing could be further from the truth. She had affairs with, and I quote, "everybody." She fell for so many of her older male co-stars that multiple biographers have wondered if Kelly had some daddy issues. There was Gary Cooper, Clark Gable, and Ray Milland, just to name a few. Milland's wife even called Kelly a "home-wrecker."

20. Victorians Had Impossible Beauty Standards

Although the hourglass figure has always held a special appeal across Western cultures, the Victorians took their obsession to a whole new level in their use of corsets. These waist-cinching devices, while successful in achieving a "wasp waist," had some major health repercussions. Besides causing fainting spells, which the era’s ladies unsurprisingly became famous for, the restriction on women’s lungs likely worsened potentially deadly ailments like pneumonia and tuberculosis.

21. Sweden Wasn't Always Peaceful

File:Verwilt - Erik XiV DSC6824.jpg - Wikimedia Commonscommons.wikimedia.org

Erik XIV of Sweden was super paranoid. It wasn’t unusual for people caught laughing, smiling, or whispering within Erik’s earshot to find themselves on trial for treason. Somewhat ironically, he passed in 1577 when someone poisoned his pea soup. We guess just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.

22. Mary Shelley Kept Her Husband's Heart

Frankenstein author Mary Shelley had a pretty gross secret hidden away in her desk: her dead husband’s heart. When her husband, the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, drowned in a boating accident, he was cremated, but his heart remained intact. Mary eventually took possession of it, and researchers discovered it in her desk when she passed a few years later.

23. King Henry VIII Had Royal Bottom Wipers

The infamous King Henry VIII employed four Grooms of the Stool, men whose job it was to wipe the royal bottom and attend to his other private needs. It was a position of great honor, but also—as one Groom soon discovered—incredibly grave danger. Henry VIII executed one of his bathroom staff, Sir Henry Norris, on trumped-up charges that he was sleeping with Henry's second wife Anne Boleyn.

24. Versailles Wasn't As Glamorous As We Think

Château de Versailles (Yvelines) | Le château vue depuis le … | Flickrwww.flickr.com

The legendary Palace of Versailles had everything—except enough toilets for everybody. Despite the villa’s luxury, Versailles simply didn’t have enough public water closets to accommodate Louis XIV’s huge court. It wasn’t uncommon for courtiers to pay each other for access to those precious commodes…or else, they simply went in the corner.

25. Mozart Loved Poop

Mozart was surprisingly obsessed with bathroom humor. Two of his songs actually talk about analingus. He also wrote letters to his family where he described his bowel movements in great detail.

26. King George IV Got A Brutal Revenge

King George IV hated his wife Caroline of Brunswick. When their only daughter perished in childbirth, George didn't even tell Caroline. She had to find out by accident through a courier.

27. Joan Crawford Once Gave Her Crush A Disturbing "Gift"

File:Joan Crawford in Humoresque, 1946 (cropped).png - Wikimedia ...commons.wikimedia.org

Actress Joan Crawford once came on to her co-star Henry Fonda by making him a red sequined jockstrap.

28. A King Of Egypt Had A Disgusting Appetite

While many of Egypt’s citizens starved, King Farouk of Egypt reportedly ate 600 oysters a week. Not content with this, he also bought a candy red Bentley, then demanded that no one else paint their own cars red.

29. Jack The Ripper Might Have Been A Royal

For a long time, people thought Queen Victoria's grandson Prince Albert Victor was Jack the Ripper.

30. A Famous Comedian Hated One Color

File:Peter Sellers at home in Belgravia, London, 1973.jpg - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

Comedian Peter Sellers hated the color green. He claimed it gave him “strange vibrations.” He not only refused to wear the hue, but he also refused to act opposite of anyone who did.

31. Russian Tsarinas Had A Naughty Addiction

Foot tickling was used in the Muscovite palaces and courts for centuries as a means of arousal. Many of the Czarinas (Catherine the Great, Anna Ivanovna, and others) loved it. It was so popular that eunuchs and women were employed as full-time foot ticklers.

32. The Royal Mistress Who Was A Dominatrix

Dancer and royal mistress Lola Montez carried a whip around wherever she went and lashed it out on anyone who displeased her, including members of the public, bored theatre-goers, and critics who gave her bad reviews.

33. Dracula Had A Dirty Little Secret

File:Bela Lugosi as Dracula.jpg - Wikimedia Commonscommons.wikimedia.org

Dracula actor Bela Lugosi once had an affair with starlet Clara Bow, and commissioned an undressed portrait of the actress. He then displayed the large painting prominently in all of his homes from 1929 until his passing—including in the houses he shared with his last two wives.

34. Einstein Was Stupid In One Way

Albert Einstein's secretary once got an anonymous call asking where Einstein lived. The secretary declined to respond. The caller then admitted he was Einstein himself, and that he had forgotten his address.

35. Isaac Newton May Have Been A Virgin

Though Isaac Newton lived to be 84, he never married. Some even believe he never lost his virginity.

36. This Medieval Queen Was A Grave-Robber

File:Joanna of castile with her children.jpg - Wikimedia Commonscommons.wikimedia.org

Shortly after her beloved husband's passing, Queen Joanna of Castile ordered his body exhumed, had the casket opened, jumped to his side once again, and kissed his dearly departed feet. She then carried his casket everywhere with her.

37. Cleopatra Had Wild Parties

Cleopatra wasn’t just a powerful queen; she was also a party girl. She created a drinking club known as the “Inimitable Livers” with her husband Marc Antony. The club would feast and drink heavily and then go out to play pranks on unsuspecting citizens.

38. People Actually Slept In Coffins

Actress Sarah Bernhardt had a peculiar obsession with death, and from the tender age of 15 onward, she sometimes slept in a custom-made, satin-lined rosewood coffin.

39. Caligula Loved His Horse WAY Too Much

File:Antonio Tempesta (1555-1630) (after) - Caligula (AD 12–41 ...commons.wikimedia.org

The Roman Emperor Gaius Caligula made his horse a senator.

40. The Prince Who Was Raised Like A Girl

Philippe, Duke of Orleans was the brother of King Louis XIV. To prevent Philippe from threatening his famous brother, Philippe's mother Queen Anne of Austria raised him to be very feminine, calling him “my little girl” and even urging him to dress up in frilly, feminine clothing as a child.

41. History's Most Shocking Sideshow

Tarrare was an 18th-century French showman. His party trick? He obsessively ate everything, and lots of it. His circus act had him eating, among other things, whole live animals, a basket of apples, and even rocks.

42. A "Huge" Claim To Fame

File:Porfirio Rubirosa, circa 1954.jpg - Wikimedia Commonscommons.wikimedia.org

1950s international playboy Porfirio Rubirosa had such an infamously large "package," Parisian waiters used to call their 16-inch pepper mills "Rubirosas."

43. Tsar Ivan Really Was Terrible

When Tsar Ivan the Terrible saw his pregnant daughter-in-law walking around in clothing that he didn't approve of, he absolutely snapped. He viciously attacked her, causing her to miscarry. When his son came into the room, Ivan also ended up killing him in a fit of rage.

44. But He Wasn't The Only Mad Russian

Anna, the "Mad Tsarina" of Russia, once tormented one of her hated courtiers by locking him up in an ice palace for the night. Before that, she made him pretend to be a chicken, sitting in her ante-chamber and "laying" eggs.

45. King Tut Was The Product Of The Siblings

File:King Tut Burial Mask (23785641449).jpg - Wikimedia Commonscommons.wikimedia.org

King Tutankhamun passed at the tender age of 18. Some researchers believe he died from genetic disease, due to the fact his parents were brother and sister.

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