Juggling a college courseload and a job is a delicate and often difficult task. For one college student on Reddit, this situation became downright combative when one of their professors, who went past the usual ending time of a class, got angry when they had to leave on time to make it to their job.
They weren’t sure about how they handled things, so they went to the AITA (Am I The A**hole) subReddit for perspective.
The Original Poster (OP), who goes by TheMegaladong on the site, asked:
“AITA For packing up and leaving once class is over?”
They explained:
“Sorry for the long post, I just feel awful. I am a 22-year-old college student. I commute to my college, oh and it takes me 50 minutes to get there. My last class on Thursday ends at 1:00, and afterwords I have to sprint to the parking garage that is 10 minutes across campus.”
“Most of the time, I barely get to work on time. I have already had a couple of warnings for being a couple of minutes late, and I’m afraid I will be fired if I’m late again.”
“Today in class, I noticed on my laptop that it was 1:02. Me and three others started to pack our stuff into our bags. Jenna, my friend in the class, has another class she hast to rush to to make in time, so she’s in the same boat as me.”
“As soon as I had put everything away, I looked up and my professor was staring daggers at me. He said ‘don’t do that, class isn’t over yet’. I replied ‘it’s past one, I have to go.’ He then shut off the projector and said ‘all right everyone, looks like you’ll have to figure this out on your own because apparently it’s one, class is over.'”
“I tried to say that I needed to leave for work or I would be late, but he just shut me down. He then started to go on about how disrespectful and rude I was, and that our generation had no respect.”
“What was I supposed to do? Stay the extra six or seven minutes and be late to work, possibly risking the job I have to pay for my basic necessities? Jenna texted me and said ‘I’m so sorry he went off on you, everyone else was getting ready as well’.”
“That made me feel a little bit better, but I feel terrible that he stopped the lecture because of me so other people couldn’t get information. Was I being disrespectful? AITA?”
People on Reddit were then asked to judge who was in the wrong in this situation based on the following categories:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
- NAH – No A**holes Here
And they felt pretty strongly that OP was well within her rights to leave the class when she did.
“NTA – your professor cant manage his time its not your fault” —ChewyRib
“Exactly. And it’s honestly hella rude. He’s probably holding up the classroom for the next class, even if it is his own, and I’m sure that you’re not the only working student in his classes. He needs to either learn better time management or learn how to deal with students having other commitments better.” —calliatom
“Once, a college professor told me that he typically advised students to only work 15 hours a week while in school and I laughed in his face before asking if he was willing to pay my rent and car note. He couldn’t look me in the eye for a solid couple of weeks afterwards.”
“It’s so easy to get checked out when you’re in a certain position for a long time.” —daughter-of-durin
“Honestly, I’d report this to the department head. It’s a community college, meaning there’s a lot of students that have outside responsibilities. Furthermore, he’s likely preventing students from making it to other classes on time as well. Occasionally running a little over time is okay, but he needs to understand that some students might not be able to stay over, and being a jerk to students that can’t stay over is not.” —Crunchycarrots79
“And what about people who have classes after his? Does he expect the other profs to be o.k. with people being late, because he couldn’t end on time?” —TraceyR53
“People walk in late and walk out early from all of my classes regularly. I myself was late to both of my classes yesterday (I’m not usually late). People get up to go to the bathroom or literally just leave class whenever they feel like it so often”
“NTA” —dyingstars28
“NTA You can bet your bottom dollar if the professor had another lecture or job to go to immediately afterwards, that lesson would have finished PROMPTLY.” —chuckiestealady
“NTA – I get that college isn’t like high school, in that it has bells or something to denote when 1 class ends and the next one begins, but your professor should be able to finish the class at the prescribed time. That’s like, lesson 1 on classroom management.”
“Students have other classes or responsibilities; and it’s possible that another class could be waiting for that room. He was already being disrespectful of everyone’s time, and then he doubled down by calling you out and making you the scapegoat of his bad management.”
“If he still had things he needed to discuss, he should have said, ‘okay, we’re at time. Can everyone stay over to keep going? If not, we’ll pick up next time.’ It’s not difficult.” —chiterkins
“Right? Bad time management is on the professor. It isn’t like Prof had to come in and settle class for ten minutes and that put everyone behind.”
“It might be that someone had a question that took some explaining and it took time, but that should still be built in to class time to a degree.”
“Respect goes both ways.” —District_Rude
OP came back later to add an update.
“Edit: I had lab with this professor today. He, in front of the class, said he forgave me for packing up at 12:55. He literally lied that I was leaving 5 minutes before class was officially over. I’m so fu*king done with this professor dude.”
Hopefully OP’s professor can learn to be a bit more lenient.