This is a satirical piece written in jest.

It's that time of the year again! Students finally get sweet revenge on the professors who have been making their lives miserable. Unfortunately, that one bit of solace students receive when they can evaluate their professors will not be taken into account this year, because all of the Course Evaluation Forms (CEFs) were accidentally shredded.

“I swear I thought it was a file cabinet,” protested Professor Sterling of the Political Science department. “It’s not my fault that the shredder is so fun to play with anyway.”

I asked her if she had a chance to read any of her CEFs before she accidentally shredded them for a third time.

“I did read them, and I’ll tell you that I really thought I deserved a better grade,” she said. “I worked really hard in that class all year. But my students seemed to think that I always passed work back late, and that it seemed like I came to class unprepared, but what am I supposed to do? Stay up all night grading? I expect I’m just supposed to give up having friends too.”

I approached several students who had written their CFSs for Professor Sterling, and they were not at all happy with her class.

A sophomore named Claire said, “Professor Sterling is constantly talking during class. I don’t think she even does the readings, and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen her texting too. I thought my assessment was honest, and I gave her an unsatisfactory grade.”

Another student named Conor chimed in, “Honestly, one bad grade on a CEF is not the end of the world. She should just take it as a lesson to do better next time.”

However, when I changed the subject to the fact that Professor Sterling admitted to accidentally shredding all the CEF’s the students became hysterical.

“Doesn’t she know how seriously CEFs are taken?” Cried Josh, a sophomore, “I mean, I know for a fact my input on a class and professor are the most valuable asset to judge whether a professor deserves tenure!”

“Ridiculous!” complained Tyler, another student, “destroying CEFs, even by accident, is cheating. She should receive a zero, and be put on academic probation, and if she does it again, she should be fired.”

I returned to Professor Sterling to ask her what she thought about her student’s reaction. She was taken aback by their ferocity.

“Frankly, they were not very good students. I plan to go immediately to ratemystudents.com so no professor makes the mistake of teaching them again. And between you and me, thank god the CEFs are destroyed. I don’t know what my parents would have said if they saw them!”