Photo by Gauraangi Gupta
College students are well known for crafting some of the most creative excuses to explain missed assignments. Today, they have mastered crafting their own rendition of the classic, “The dog ate my homework.”
In the midst of juggling classwork, part-time jobs, internships and the usual stresses of daily life, it is practically a guarantee that college students experience occasional setbacks. It’s no wonder why things (cough, cough… assignments) slip through the cracks.
Desperate times call for desperate measures.
Nothing exemplifies that saying more than the inventive explanations students come up with when the deadline panic sets in. Professors have heard it all from sudden family emergencies to inexplicable tech failures.
Every semester, new contenders arise for the most-dramatic-excuse award.
Here are some of the wildest and most overused excuses University of Houston students have shared or heard. These anonymous students have managed to top even the timeless dog-eating-homework tale with excuses that range from desperate to downright unbelievable.
Family Emergencies and Technical Difficulties
Timeless go-to excuses include a sick family member, a sudden emergency or an unavoidable accident.
“My grandma’s in the hospital,” some students say.
Others say, “My sibling was admitted to the ER last night.”
Some even say, “I got into a car accident on the way to campus.”
These kinds of excuses are hard to argue with and sometimes completely true. Professors, however, admit they can spot when a student stretches a story just a little too far.
A UH professor recalled their own bizarre excuse slip-up from their graduate school days. They emailed the same professor about the death of their grandmother twice in one semester.
Chronic procrastinators believe they’ve cracked the excuse code for digital submissions, though.
“I accidentally submitted the wrong file,” they say, when in reality they just submitted a blank document named Final_Essay_REAL(2).docx. This trick has saved more students than imagined.
Unbelievable and Bizarre Excuses
It is oddly impressive how quickly college students can turn a moment of panic into a full-blown creative exercise. It is even more oddly impressive when the excuses are unbelievable and bizarre, but also true.
The following are a mix of UH and non-UH student excuse stories.
“I was late once because someone threw my bike into a tree,” one student said. “Someone must have tried to steal it, got frustrated when it wouldn’t ride, and just launched it into a tree.”
As crazy as it sounded, the student had a photo of their bike dangling from the branches to prove it.
Another student recalled missing an in-class assignment because one of the legendary campus squirrels had bitten them.
“I was trying to feed one of the squirrels, and the squirrel bit part of my finger with the granola bar,” they said.
Then, there’s the student who walked in more than 20 minutes late holding a Starbucks cup in one hand and a bag of pastries in the other.
“Sorry for being late, Professor. The bus broke down on the way here,” they said. The croissant crumbs, however, were telling a slightly different story.
And just when you think you’ve heard it all, one student sent what might be the most relatable—and unintentionally hilarious—excuse email.
“Hi Professor! This might be the weirdest email you’ve gotten, but I have a dumb excuse for not being in class right now,” they said, starting off the email with accountability.
“I’ve been walking around looking for the classroom for 30 minutes, and I can’t seem to find it. My feet r literally hurting as I write this email to you,” they added. “I don’t know where the classroom is, and I think it is because of all the construction going on.”
Anyone who has spent 30 minutes wandering around campus unable to find a classroom, largely thanks to the continuous construction on UH’s campus, may relate to the validity of this email.
The email ended, “If I don’t make it to class, it’s because I couldn’t find it. I am so sorry for bothering you with this weird email. I shall go continue trying to find the class.”
The email was a chaotic combination of honesty, exhaustion and panic punctuated with spelling and capitalization errors here and there.
As with this case, sometimes the truth itself can be completely valid. You don’t need a fake hospital visit or a tech failure.
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