Opinion: Night Classes Should Be Illegal in the Fall
The NFL season kicks off with a primetime matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and Detroit Lions tonight at 8:20 Eastern. As great as a night like this is, it reminds me of something that should be federal law across the land: classes that end after 4PM pacific should be illegal during the fall.
Think about it, you’re a college student and a football fan, how likely are you to pay attention to your professor on a night like tonight? No chance, right? So why bother having kids come to a class that I’m willing to bet even the professor wants nothing to do with. Unless the subject is how to (responsibly) gamble on sports and understanding line changes and totals, a minimum of 50% of the class will be tuned out in order to tune in to Al Michaels and Kirk Herbstreit on the call.
East Coast students get a little more of a break because the game starts so late that we can still have a majority of our time in the classroom without issue. However, unlike the stereotype of East Coast people only caring about East Coast problems, I care about our friends out west. Students at the USCs, Washington States and Boise States of the world don’t deserve to be penalized for their fandom; don’t even get me started on our students out in Hawaii and Alaska too.
I’ve heard many arguments that the day after the Super Bowl should be a national holiday. This is something I tend to agree with, but I don’t think it should stop there. Why bother allowing classes to take place on Monday and Thursday nights as soon as football season kicks off? Productivity and attention spans get slashed like victims in the Scream franchise. Save these classes for Tuesday and Thursday nights when the only people ignoring teachers are the true sickos watching MACtion and other similar divisions of college football; we don’t need to worry about those kids because they’re way too far down the rabbit hole to pull back to reality.
Colleges and Universities aren’t always known for doing the right thing, but this is a layup. Ban any night classes on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays (because who is going to go to a night class on a Friday even without football) and maybe allow them on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Productivity will increase, fans get what they want and everybody gets a win.
In a totally unrelated note, my grad school class had better be done before 8PM tonight or I’m going to be livid for reasons I can’t specify at this time…
