The Oberlin Review
<< Front page Commentary October 13, 2007

The Ethical Obie

My 10 a.m. class is very boring, and if I don’t get coffee before it starts, I find myself dozing off. BUT, I have a class that gets out at 9:50, and so getting coffee makes me late. Is it more acceptable to disrupt class by walking in late, or to do so by nodding off and yawning without my coffee?

–Addicted and Conflicted

When I read your question I thought of a Calvin and Hobbes comic strip. Calvin is sitting in his desk with the largest wad of chewing gum in his mouth that can possibly fit. There is a trickle of drool at the side of his mouth because he cannot keep it fully closed, and you can imagine the smacking sound he’s making. The teacher asks Calvin if he has enough to share with everyone in the class. Calvin hauls the gum out of his mouth, looks at it, and says “Probably, but do you really think they will want any?”

Where I am going with this is that you should bring everyone in the room — professor and peers — coffee too. Unless you are in West Lecture Hall, sneaking in late will not go unnoticed, and it will be distracting to both your peers and your professor. It may even encourage your peers to desperately sprint for their own cups – assuming you are not providing, as suggested above – and start a nasty epidemic of lateness that will ultimately hurt your learning experience.

While this may sound preachy, just tally up how much you are paying financially for those classes; you want them to count. Also, when we register for a class, we enter an agreement that we will be there. Sometimes this agreement is on the syllabus, but it is always in the respect we owe everyone else in the class.

You may yawn, but you are not alone. Who doesn’t yawn at some point in a 10 a.m. class? Unless your yawns are so phenomenal that they suck all the air out of the room, literally or metaphorically, no one will really notice.

If supplying everyone with a jolt of java is not an option (and I can think of several things that would make it difficult), you owe it to your professor and classmates to be on time. You also owe it to yourself to make the class worth its time. To keep from falling asleep, consider investing in a thermos. There is something fun about drinking your brew out of the little screw-on-lid-turned-cup.

Other ways to stay awake, as suggested by Wikihow.com, are: eat an apple (healthier and cheaper than coffee), actively take notes, change positions regularly and sit where you cannot glance at the clock every 40 seconds.

If all else fails, I like cream, sugar and a touch of cinnamon in my coffee.

Please e-mail your ethical dilemmas to Theethicalobie@gmail.com

–Jay Nolan
The Ethical Obie


 
 
   

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