By David Mosca –

We’ve heard it all before, and we’ve probably said it ourselves: “My dog ate my homework,” “I forgot to do it,” “my computer broke,” “I had to take my mother to the hospital,” “I got stuck in traffic.” The excuses just go on and on. We’ve all had our fair share of excuses for a teacher whether it was regarding a homework assignment or being late/absent for class. We spoke to several professors on the NJCU campus and asked them what the lamest excuse was that they ever received from a student.

“I’ve had an unusual amount of grandmothers die each semester. In winter, I get students calling from Florida saying their grandmother is dying, and then they are gone for 10 days! They come back and say it took 10 days for her to die.”
– Bruce Chadwick,
Journalism, Randolph, NJ

“I’ve had more than one student say they were doing research on the legalization of marijuana. They’d hand me a paper that smelled like it too.”
– Adrienne Ward,
English, Union Beach, NJ

“Usually students just tell me that they couldn’t download an assignment online or that their car broke down.”
– Jacqueline Ellis,
Women’s and Gender Studies,
Montclair, NJ

“I saw one of my students who was not in class, so I asked her why she was absent. She said she ‘wasn’t absent,’ because she ‘was in the building.’ So we had an argument over the meaning of the word ‘absent.’”
– Borys Ewicz,
Philosophy/Religion, Brooklyn, NY