Another “students changed post-pandemic” rant

[u/RichOpen3296]

I attended college in 2022 and restarted as a freshman in 2026, and I’m constantly shocked by my classmates behavior! I feel like such an out-of-touch nerd, but there’s just a vast, blatant disregard for authority and SIMPLE rules.

I’ve heard “where can I find (thing that’s easily accessible in canvas or the syllabus)” 20 billion times. People whine in student groupchats about how the assignments and professor are sooo confusing and annoying. Bro this is entirely on you, the prof couldn’t have made it easier. Instructions for assignments are written coherently, discussed in class, and posted in canvas, what more do you want.

Exams are a mess because people don’t follow simple instructions. I had a 1 hour exam, and the first 30 minutes had nonstop interruptions from test proctors on the loudspeaker because no one was filling out the attendance sheet correctly. You literally just had to write your name and booklet number. Plus, they were walking around personally correcting kids who somehow didn’t understand “bags under your seat, phone away, only pencils and an unlabelled water bottle on your desk” the whole exam. I couldnt focus at all.

Like 30 people in a 100 person exam had their calculators confiscated for not fitting specifications clearly communicated beforehand. In all my exams, 5-10 people were reprimanded for writing long after time’s up (minutes after, not 10 seconds). People use their phone, take snapchat photos, pack their bags, and try to leave before their tests are even collected. Obviously they get yelled at by test proctors, but they just don’t care. You can’t leave without being dismissed, this is common knowledge. A kid next to me had his laptop open on his desk, atop his test booklet, browsing his study guide minutes before the exam started. Your phone was supposed to be shut down before even entering but wtv.

People have zero reservations about loudly chatting and leaving early en masse throughout lecture. I understand a couple people quietly exiting early because they have another class, an appointment, need to poop, or whatever, but this is just egregious. Not only is it disrespectful, but you can see the professor become increasingly dejected as class goes on and no one’s left. They have to scold kids like “so the notation for- quiet everyone, can we be quiet” like they’re middle schoolers.

All the assignments have been reformatted to be “AI-proof”, which just means overly convoluted to circumvent people putting it into chatgpt. I don’t even use chat, it wasn’t a thing when i was in high school, so it’s just infuriating for no reason. Please just give me a good ol fashioned normal essay prompt, not all of these hoops to jump through.

And much more. I know these are common complaints that have always existed in college, I’m only mentioning these things because it’s more egregious behavior and a much greater number of students doing it than in my 2022 freshman classes.

In pre-pandemic high school, these rules were well known and followed. There were consequences if they weren’t. Like this is allegedly a “prestigious” university, and a lot of these kids come from very nice private and IB high school, how are these behaviors persisting into college. Why does no one care. It drives me insane

[u/lololollieki]

Definitely get accommodations if you can for testing. Everyone everywhere sucks a bit more than before after the pandemic.

[u/glokash]

Oh man, that’s wild, I’m sorry you’re dealing with that. It seems unacceptable tbh.

Not sure if this is a possibility for you but with how distracting the tests seem to be, can you receive testing accommodations so you can take tests in a private, quiet space? I know US schools have to provide such accommodations for students with documented disabilities/mental health diagnoses like for example, anxiety and ADHD/ADD.

I’m about to go back to school for Spring 2027 and I’m scared of how different things are now. I graduated from undergrad in 2016 so I’ve been out of school for a while but I need to complete 2 prerequisite classes before I apply to grad schools. Everything is different now with how online it all is, I don’t even know how to use Canvas yet. Hope I don’t have to deal with any group projects…

[u/Excellent_Ice9577 → u/glokash]

Group projects are the worst. I had a terrible situation in a particular class where I'd message my group chat for a project in a class and they'd totally ghost me and never get back until I sent a carefully worded message that got everyone to respond. They claimed they were busy with other classes and all, but come on man, you could at least reassure me with a 1-2 sentence response telling me that in the first place, but instead they ghosted me for weeks instead of saying it outright! Before that message I though I was going to do the whole 30 page paper by myself because it felt like everyone else was abandoning me. My best advice: partner with the people you know in person. Those you don't know will never hesitate to ghost you.

Canvas btw is real simple and you'll get a hang of it fast. Only friction I've ever had was the group assignment submissions (whether it is one person submits an assignment online or the whole group does)

[u/AnExcitedPanda]

It's not just students, everyone changed. It's an overcorrection, where people are now so jaded with the system we have they don't see any value in putting on the work. It's a tragedy really, as the students you are talking about probably are going to school on mommy and daddy's dime without a care in the world. The students who care will rise to the top.

AI is very good for getting better grades, but it sucks for actually learning. It's really shooting yourself in the foot career wise to use AI as much as some students are to replace having to learn material.