The following piece is satire and should not be misconstrued as actual reporting. Any resemblance to a student, staff or faculty member is coincidental.
Aug. 25, 2024. A day that will live in infamy. Our former president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, once remarked that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” From this quote, we can infer that Franklin never had to use a website to manage his college course resources. Unlike Mr. Roosevelt, our protagonist in this story is all too familiar with this reality.
8:00 a.m. American University freshman Tracy Bulette jolts awake — no alarm, just a sense of justice empowering her.
10:30 a.m. Tracy wakes up again. As it turns out, justice doesn’t have a lot of caffeine in it. The day still has a relaxed aura. The sun is shining, there’s a slight breeze coming from the window and there’s a whole year of opportunity awaiting. But Tracy has been deceived. There will be no such year.
11:30 a.m. Tracy remembers that she has yet to learn a single thing about her only case class tomorrow. What does “hydrology” even mean? Probably something about water, but who’s to say? After some extremely informative Instagram reels, she opens the Canvas page for the course on her computer.
A cryptic message greets her: the professor’s name, email and phone number. That’s it. What is she gonna do with a phone number? Does the professor expect to chat with them? Don’t they have a TA for that? Surely this must go deeper.
1:00 p.m. Tracy has finally arrived at the crime scene “course materials” section of the page. One peek at what’s inside makes her sick to her stomach. Dead links strewn all over the place. File types that nobody under 30 has even heard of. The syllabus nowhere to be found. Gone. Or never there to begin with? And a note, almost surely a taunt: “Do not hesitate to contact me with any questions.” What sick monster would do such a thing? And what student would be brave enough to contact the professor? This called for a break.
1:45 p.m. Tracy ponders her investigation at the local saloon dining hall. The feeling of hope has spoiled like milk. But not even into good cheese or anything. A Kraft single at best. The food felt black and white, if that’s even possible.
Tracy pauses for a smoke breath of fresh air outside. While doing some more research on her stroll back, she makes another horrifying discovery. As of last semester, the class TA had been disposed of reassigned. The plot thickens.
4:00 p.m. While pacing around her office dorm room, a note is slipped under Tracy’s door. It reads, “NOTHING IS AS IT SEEMS. MEET ME AT THE BUS STOP IN FIVE MINUTES.” Five minutes?? The stop was at least six minutes away. How curious.
4:11 p.m. After severely misjudging her jogging speed, Tracy was approached by a figure in a black trench coat at the bus stop. Surely, they had to be dying of heat. It was August, it was like 100 degrees out. The stranger with poor fashion sense walked past her, only whispering, “Go straight to the source.” Before leaving, they turned back and said, “I was supposed to disappear behind a wonk-bus, but I guess you weren’t fast enough. Thanks.” Wow, what an attitude on that one.
7:47 p.m. After staring at her phone for 3 hours, Tracy had virtually solved the mystery. It all pointed to one suspect: professor Wormwood. Finally, after a glass of liquid courage refreshing water, Tracy dialed the number. One ring, two rings. Oh, God. Would she have to leave a voicemail? What tone would you even use for that? By the grace of some otherworldly being, professor Wormwood picked up after three rings.
He opened with “What’s up?” Isn’t this dude like 60? Who does he think he is? With every conceivable emotion and a few new ones fusing together, Tracy blurted out, “I noticed that the syllabus wasn’t included in the class materials.”
7:48 p.m. “Oh,” said professor Wormwood. “I’ll fix that.” He hangs up. Of course he did. And you can’t even call him rude or anything. It’s like professors have automatic authority over every social interaction.
Having lost five pounds of water weight just from sweating through that conversation, Tracy collapses onto her bed. Maybe in her dreams, she can find the .pdf file.
7:55 p.m. Tracy revisits the resources page. There it was. The full syllabus, as beautiful as she could have ever imagined it. Tracy smiled for the first time that day. That is, until she reached the “course materials” section. HOW MUCH for a textbook?!
Domenic DiPietro is a sophomore at American University and a satire columnist at The Eagle.
This article was edited by Aidan Dowell, Alana Parker, Quinn Volpe and Walker Whalen. Copy editing done by Sabine Kanter-Huchting and Emma Brown.
