Professor Just Wants To Add One More Thing Three Minutes After Class Was Supposed To End

Now that social distancing has dethroned on-campus canvasser coercion as the ubiquitous collegiate human rights violation, the impromptu Zoom class extension has comfortably taken its place. Sure, the tragic and monotonous haze that has been the past several pandemic-era months has left most of us incapable of distinguishing the linear boundaries between each week and the next. But with mass Zoom fatigue at play, even the very slightest of chronological overstepping has students everywhere referring back to the Geneva Convention just to be sure. To put it simply: some students have had enough.

“It’s every single class with this professor,” said exasperated junior Melissa Evans, milliseconds after exiting a Friday afternoon lecture and shutting her laptop swiftly. “Every week I spend the entirety of this ‘Intro to Beekeeping’ class staring at the time on my phone held carefully out of frame, foolishly waiting for 6:00PM to arrive just to hear, ‘and one more thing before you go’ at 5:59. At this point I think us students should unionize. This kind of encroachment just cannot go on unchecked. Like, you mean to tell me I just spent the past hour and 15 minutes ‘totally agreeing’ with literally any statements made for the sake of my participation grade just to be expected to pretend to pay attention for a couple extra moments? Ridiculous! I have places to be! For example, my couch instead of my desk.” 

“The kids really seem to be engaging with my class,” said experienced and mildly oblivious beekeeper and tenured professor Matthew Phillips. “The discussion just gets so lively that sometimes we go over a bit, but I can’t imagine anyone minds. Well, sometimes the ‘discussion’ is mostly me fielding questions and embracing the gap of silence that tends to follow until someone finally unmutes, but I think we can all agree that those moments still speak volumes. What I love about the Zoom format is the subtle hostage situation it fabricates; where I would normally begin to hear an obscuring chorus of closing notebooks and zipped up backpacks, the participant counter inspires a bit more healthy allegiance to the final moments of my lectures. And I think the weekly ambiguity of when it’ll all finally be over adds a bit of mystery and excitement to the operation, no?”

Within this current cultural moment, few things can be held as certain. For many students, the sweet scheduled release of the conclusion to a Zoom session is a saving grace that they cannot afford to sacrifice. As we careen into apocalypse-era class schedule anarchy, the modern time-conscious student can only wonder what other conventions may be on the chopping block. What’s next? The loss of the mute function placing your mid-lecture “Hell’s Kitchen” addiction on full display? Omnipresent camera use exposing your position on your couch in front of yet another episode of Hell’s Kitchen? Who’s to say.