I have no ambition to be an educator in my life – not because I have anything against faculty, but because I have something against students. Think about this – on those mornings when your alarm clock wakes you up, and you roll over, bleary-eyed, thinking about how horrible your day is about to be – what is it that stops you from going to class? I know what stops me – the students.

Students fill me with intense irritation which often manifests itself with pounding headaches or burning skin rash. After a great deal of observation and a lifetime of being a student, trapped in classrooms with other students, I’ve compiled a list of the sort of students you should do everything in your power to avoid.

If it becomes apparent on the first day of class that you have fallen in with any of these people, I urge you for your own sanity to change sections or even consider dropping the class altogether. Do you really need to graduate in four years, and is it truly worth having to sit through 16 weeks with people like this?

PROFILE: The Mom

Age: At least 45

Voice: Condescending

Standing: Nontraditional

The Mom has had a long, successful life; is married; has a house; has kids who are already out of college; and near as you can tell, has no reason to be here. Every time your professor brings up a point, she relates it to her kids, or to her 25-year marriage, or to the prehistoric and mysterious era when she was our age. Everything you say, she can trump because she’s been around twice as long as you have. She loves nothing more than to raise her hand two minutes before the end of class and then talk for fifteen minutes. What you should do: Hope she decides to drop – she can afford the three grand she’s throwing away on this little safari, after all.

PROFILE: The walking disaster area

Age: Under 21 (but still drinks)

Voice: Traumatized

Standing: Failing everything

She comes into class a teary-eyed wreck. She always sits right next to you. On breaks, she is on her cell phone either yelling at her boyfriend or being yelled at by him. When you ask her how she’s doing, she’ll go into a monologue about how her best friend just slept with her boyfriend, her cat just got run over, she’s failing a class because her professor doesn’t understand her intellect, or she just bonded out of jail. Any day she ends class without bursting into tears is a miracle. What you should do: Make every effort to form a clique that excludes her. The attention starvation will quickly drop her.

PROFILE: The 4.0 grad student

Age: Less than or equal to 30

Voice: Emphatic, pretentious

Standing: 220 hours (in this major)

This fellow knows more than you about the class content, and can’t avoid reminding you of it every minute of every class. Frequently, he does the very same to the professor with his constant, insightful questions that thoroughly drag out every point on the syllabus and lag the class a week and a half behind the schedule. He’s taken enough classes to get out of here twice, but he’s taking this one so he can one-up everybody with his 600-level knowledge. What you should do: Petition LA&S to reform the curriculum in such a way that his degrees all become invalid.

PROFILE: The Overstimulated Frosh

Age: 18-19

Voice: Hung over

Standing: Undecided

He may not know what he wants to do after he gets out of here, but he knows what he wants to do while he is here – party hard. High school is over for this student, and the long road of late-night underage drinking and waking three hours after the midterm was supposed to start has begun in earnest. Expect to hear many trumped-up stories of Saturday shenanigans, and if you’ve got him in English 101 for peer editing, get ready for the persuasive essay entitled, “Why We Should Lower the Drinking Age to 18.” What you should do: Just wait it out. He won’t be back for English 102.

PROFILE: The Monologuer

Age: Yours… most of it talking

Voice: From the stomach

Standing: A for effort

This girl always has something to say – and she loves saying it. For hours. The professor dreads calling on her, but unfortunately, nobody else wants to raise their hand and put an end to the awkward, horrible silence that punctuates every single question. The Monologuer loves nothing more, and feels not even a bit of self-consciousness as she goes on about things that make no sense whatsoever – what happened to her dog this morning, or how the professor’s lesson plan relates to whatever movie she just saw in theatres. What you should do: Get up and leave when class is over… will the professor even notice?