'I didn't send him an email reminding him homework was due': 20+ Clueless college kids who baffled the other students

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Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Oct 9, 2024 3:00 PM EDT

The folks you're about to read about were not the A+ students of their classes. Not every student can be the best in their class. Most are going to be somewhere in the middle, and some are going to be at the bottom of the grade book. Professors expect this, and many of them aren't discouraged by seemingly dumb questions. After all, the question that's silly to one student might be really educational to another student. It doesn't hurt to ask! 

Still, there are some questions that leave you wondering how these students ever graduated high school in the first place. One student openly admitted to cheating, out loud, in class, in front of the professor. She flippantly said that she had copied from a book to pad out her paper, leaving the whole class stunned. Another person was found to have plagiarised a paper. Funny enough, that paper was just an introduction about themself! Why in the world would you need to plagiarise information about yourself? 

Check out all of these ridiculous college questions below, thanks to one person's r/AskReddit query: "College students, what is the dumbest thing you've heard a fellow student say?"

Up next, find out why "an entire group of bridesmaids left a wedding" while acting on a dare. 

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    Cheezburger Image 10413972480
    via Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash+

    This image is for illustration only, and the subjects are models; the image does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • 02
    College students, what is the dumbest thing you've heard a fellow student say?
    via u/[deleted]
  • 03
    Demonweed When I first moved into a house off campus, I shared the top floor with a surprisingly slow-witted guy. He was quiet and had an overnight job, so I really only saw him when we were all drinking or hosting a party. Over Christmas, and old friend was hard-up for cash, so I bought his childhood NES and game collection, probably overpaying since
    via u/Demonweed
  • 04
    half my purpose was to help this guy out. It was a hit on our tiny TV. Most afternoons, a few people would be gathered around for some Tecmo Bowl or RC Pro-Am. Over spring break when I had the place to myself, I beat the original Metroid. Good times! Then, near the end of the semester, just before dawn in the haze after a huge party, some strangers
    via u/Demonweed
  • 05
    walk in and start hauling off our TV, stereo, etc. My upstairs floormate confronts them, and one of these shady intruders says, "we're with the electronics repair service. We'll have these back to you right away." This guy proceeds to hold the door and help them with our old VCR (most of the house had theater majors, so studying particular performances was legitimate homework) and
    via u/Demonweed
  • 06
    then my NES. They even got the cartridges, but when they started hauling out CDs he finally became suspicious. The specific dumbest thing, regarding strangers who show up ~5am and start hauling off the most valuable items from our front room was, "they told me they were the electronics repair crew, so I helped them get everything
    via u/Demonweed
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    out to their van." We had someone else living in that room the following year.
    via u/Demonweed
  • 08
    Ganglebot I was assigned a two person group project and a partner. She tells me straight up, "I'm too busy for this, you can do it". Tell her that's not how it works, she'll have to do her share. She doesn't care, or respond to any further email on it. So I do all the work. Hand it in with a cover letter, explaining she did nothing. I get 90%, she gets 0%
    via u/Ganglebot
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    In front of the whole class she says, "Ganglebot is a and gave me zero on the this assignment. Its not fair, and he's a II Professor: "Oh! Well, he informed me you didn't do. any of the work on the project. Was this not the case!" Girl: "THAT'S NOT HOW IT WORKS! A GROUP
    via u/Ganglebot
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    PROJECT MEANS WE ALL GET THE SAME MARK, NO MATTER HOW MUCH WORK YOU DO! IT MEANS ONE PERSON GETS A BREAK FROM THE ASSIGNMENT!" Professor: "Nope, that's not how that works"
    via u/Ganglebot
  • 11
    finkleismayor In an ethics class, a girl decked out in a horrible clash of designer name brands on every article of clothing and personal possesion raised her hand and said, "The difference between rich people and poor people is that rich people know how to say thank you." We were discussing the differences between wealthy and
    via u/finkleismayor
  • 12
    poverty level treatment in a courtroom. Also, in a final exam for a Criminal Procedure class, there was a typo. I forget what it said, but it was supposed to say "mortal" as in "mortal wound." Every one pretty much made out what it was supposed to say through the context of the sentence, except this one girl. She went up to ask the teacher what the mispelled
    via u/finkleismayor
  • 13
    word meant and he announced to the class the correct spelling. She stood. there and asked him what mortal meant. He just looked at her, and said in the dead silence of a final exam, "You're a 4th year Criminal Justice major in a Criminal Procedure class. I am NOT going to explain to you what a mortal wound is."
    via u/finkleismayor
  • 14
    dietcherrypepsi During an MBA marketing class, we had group projects where we basically had a set of data given to us to come up with a marketing plan. One group took the customer data and proudly averaged all of the customer's zip codes to get the geographical center of their customer base.
    via u/dietcherrypepsi
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    Later in the professor's office, they argued when the prof told them it didn't work that way. The team leader said, "Well, that's just your opinion" and stomped out.
    via u/dietcherrypepsi
  • 16
    Soulbrandt-Regis Actually a week ago. We had just gotten out of our final exam for the year, and this girl is making her way to the door. Before she even reaches it, she says to her friend: "Yeah, I had to copy a few parts of my book to reach the word count." You ever hear a record scratch in real life, and that
    via u/Soulbrandt-Regis
  • 17
    90s meme following it? That pretty much happened. The teacher called the girl up to the front and silently, without a word began to go into the paper logs and saw that Turnitin had a 75% plagiarism rate. It was... well, for her? It probably sucked But for the rest of us? Golden city of how do you bad. this
    via u/Soulbrandt-Regis
  • 18
    Alwin_ It was in a match class when a teacher was trying to get a girl to understand that 1/3 is larger than 1/4, but she wasnt having any of it. According to her, 1/4 was larger because there are four 1/4's to make a whole and only three 1/3's to make one too. So there are more 1/4's, more is larger, therefore 1/4 is larger. Even when the teacher tore a
    via u/Alwin_
  • 19
    piece of paper in three and another in four, wrote 1/3 and 1/4 on the corresponding papers, trew everything away but one 1/3 and one 1/4 and asked her which is larger she STILL went for the 1/4. Teacher sat down, didn't say anything for a minute and then continued class. That was the first time I'd ever witnessed someone giving up on a person like that.
    via u/Alwin_
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    [deleted] My favorite has got to be when a student read "World War II" as "World War Eleven"
    via u/[deleted]
  • 21
    MITEconomicsP... Professor here: Student was upset that I didn't send him an email reminding him homework was due. I apologized and asked if there was anything else I could do for him...maybe his laundry, grocery shopping, etc. He stormed out of the classroom. Other students laughed.
    via u/MITEconomicsPhD
  • 22
    GreyPig_HalfN... Two girls. Business majors. Very stereotype-y. Around 2010. "We should start a website, where anyone can sign up and simply pay a fee to charge their laptops over the internet." "Oh yeah! That's a good idea!"
    via u/GreyPig_HalfNHalf
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    No mention of peripherals, so I can only assume: the website hacks into the router you're connected to, turns it into a tesla coil, and arcs a surge of electricity from the device to your laptop battery.
    via u/GreyPig_HalfNHalf
  • 24
    Darkbasic First week of college I watched this kid cut in line get confronted by his peers. His response was "as far as I'm concerned I'm more attractive than you."
    via u/Darkbasic
  • 25
    siyl1979 "No, there's TWO different types of turkeys- one for white meat, one for dark."
    via u/siyl1979
  • 26
    Rise_ToThe_Oc... One girl asked if she went $300 over her credit limit, if she would have to pay it back.
    via u/Rise_ToThe_Occasion
  • 27
    S... In a literature class: Girl: "So, all those Greek Gods and Goddesses, what happened to them?" Professor, confused: "You mean in the story?" Girl: "No, like, WHAT HAPPENED to them?" Professor: "I... I'm not sure I understand what you're
    via u/sunny_k11
  • 28
    asking..." Girl: "Like, why are they not around anymore? Did they all die?" The whole class was just a stunned silence.
    via u/sunny_k11
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    Edit: The professor gave her a very vague answer like "Well that's open to your own interpretation." I could tell she was trying not to sound condescending. She handled that way better than I would've.
    via u/sunny_k11
  • 30
    [deleted] We were playing some drinking game. Someone correctly answers. a question with "Afghanistan." This girl laughs out loud and goes "Afghanistan isn't a country!" We all turned at once and laughed at her.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 31
    hotbrokemess "How many pages do I need to write for the five page paper?"
    via u/hotbrokemess
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    Brofessor_Waffle A roomate was leaving early in the morning with his girlfriend. "Where ya going?" "My girlfriend and I are going to watch the sun rise over the ocean." " [chuckle] Okay, have fun" So for clarification, this is the WEST coast we are talking
    via u/Brofessor_Waffle
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    about. The guy comes back later 1. "You knew it wasn't going to rise over the ocean, DIDN'T YOU?!?!" "Maybe." He pauses... "Well which days does it rise over the ocean?" "[trying not to laugh] Try tomorrow..."
    via u/Brofessor_Waffle
  • 34
    [... In my boyfriends speech communication class a guy got up to give his speech. It was obvious he didnt have one prepared. He started with "Alright, ladies raise your hand if you are single." "So the reason you ladies are single is you need to lower your standards." He then called a super athletic, good looking classmate to
    via u/[deleted]
  • 35
    the front and said "you keep going for these guys when you should be going for" and proceeds to call the super obese guy in the class to the front. I cant make this up.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 36
    Mason11987 A friend of mine was taking apart a printer in the IT lab and another friend turned to see him opening it up and yelled "don't drink the ink!" completely seriously, because that's how dumb he thought the first friend was, that he would immediately drink printer ink if given a chance.
    via u/Mason11987
  • 37
    b... While my then girlfriend was at uni she lived with an alcoholic. To try and stop him from drinking they got him hooked on smoking in an effort to change his addiction. Her words to me were: "He had an alcohol problem so we got him smoking, now he's an alcoholic that smokes"
    via u/bigmanlymark
  • 38
    Pancapples This thread is hella old already, but I have to get this off my chest. I once had to tell another student, a grown- adult, that Canada does indeed stretch from sea to sea. And we don't live in the hills, this is at a regular- community college in California.
    via u/Pancapples
  • 39
    She said she thought it was an East Coast thing. Canada. She thought that CANADA was only a thing on the East Coast of the North American continent.
    via u/Pancapples
  • 40
    Andy Vale A friend of mine moved into a new place at the start of his second year, and threw a big house party to celebrate. It was great, it was wild, fun was had. While nothing got broken, his living room got messed up quite a bit. Pillows all over the place, chair tipped over... I think someone made a fort out of pizza boxes.
    via u/Andy Vale
  • 41
    Anyway, I go round this dude's house about 5 months later, and the living room is largely in the same state I last saw it in at that party. In fact, so was lots of the house. It had barely been cleaned, mould was on a ton of their dishes, and there was a mushroom growing out of the wall in the bathroom.
    via u/Andy Vale
  • 42
    I asked him why the hadn't they tidied any of it. up, and he said: "We figured we'd have another party again soon, so why bother cleaning up?"
    via u/Andy Vale
  • 43
    cwdickinson Professor was demonstrating the need for quality checks. Asked several students to measure a piece of paper that was normal, printer paper sized. One kid was supposed to measure in inches another was supposed to measure in centimeters. Kid who measured in centimeters said the paper was 108 centimeters long. Now this
    via u/cwdickinson
  • 44
    is regular paper, 1 foot long on its longest day. This fellow did not even think twice before saying it was over a meter long. Nobody even picked up on this until it was remeasured for a "quality check". Mind blowing.
    via u/cwdickinson
  • 45
    DixiNormous1234 The other day I heard a girl giving a speech over nicotine addiction. This was supposed to be informative and have credible sources. I kid you not. "I do not believe that cigarettes are addictive. I tried them once, I am not addicted." I had to try very hard to not start laughing.
    via u/DixiNormous1234
  • 46
    atomicboner Me: "What's your major?" Guy: "It was Aerospace Engineering." Me: "Whoa! That's cool but what do you mean 'was'" Guy: "I'm on academic probation with the university because my GPA is too low. So I'm switching majors."
    via u/atomicb*ner
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    Me: "Okay I'm sorry to hear that. What are you switching to?" Guy: "Religious studies. I can get a job as a pastor." Me: "....alright, so you are big into church?" Guy: "No, I rarely go but I can worry about that later." oh my god
    via u/atomicb*ner
  • 48
    Jazzybricks A girl in my English class wrote that legalizing gay marriage will create "800 million new jobs in the United States."
    via u/Jazzybricks
  • 49
    p... A TA for calculus at a UC did a few examples of u- substitution before the professor taught it in class. Several students were amazed, and asked, "Dude, did you invent u- substitution?"
    via u/plumfrost
  • 50
    JebSupporter69 "if fish don't have lungs, how do they breathe?" I'm a second year biology student.
    via u/JebSupporter69
  • 51
    JabbaTheFunk Before class started, a few of us were talking about various states we had been to. One mentioned Alaska being attached to Canada.
    via u/JabbaTheFunk
  • 52
    This prompted a girl to chime in that Alaska is an island. She apparently thought that Alaska and Hawaii were located at the south west corner of the US like they are portrayed in the maps that just show the 50 states....
    via u/JabbaTheFunk
  • 53
    huntermc1998 "If you cheat on your girl once a month for a year, you're still 97% faithful"
    via u/huntermc1998
  • 54
    WorkdayGlobe09 I heard a girl say once before class, "I don't want to have kids with any guy with dyed hair. I don't want my kids to have wierd hair colors like green or blue." Everybody around her just kinda stated at her for a bit.
    via u/WorkdayGlobe09
  • 55
    6.. Not necessarily something they said, but my friend was in an online course and they had to write a simple paragraph about themselves. as a first assignment. Someone got caught plagiarizing.
    via u/69p***420

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