How to Fail Your Classes 101

A satirical guide on how to ace your way through this semester

Editor’s Note: This guide is a satirical look into what not to do during your college career, and is not intended to be followed in any genuine way.

Have you felt like you’ve been a bit too successful in your classes? Do you want to cut that 4.0 GPA to a 2.6 in one semester? Is it about time to stick it to your favorite and most helpful instructors?

Stop everything you’re doing—assignments, reading an important chapter, or paying attention to a lecture, because not only is this guide going to provide a framework to be an inconsistent and irresponsible student, ceasing to be productive is the key to doing so!

Welcome to How to Fail Your Classes 101!

Step 1 — You DON’T Have a Phone

We are jumping right into the bad habits with a really simple, effective way to cut contact with anyone who might need to reach you.

You no longer have a phone!

Of course, you still have the material smartphone, and this guide does not want to pull your doomscrolling away from Instagram and TikTok. Rather, this step is all about the swift cessation of the concept of a phone.

The Outlook app has disappeared from your phone. As a matter of fact, you never had it installed in the first place. Jonas Macapinlac’s alerts about what’s going on around campus never made it to your eyes in the first place, so let’s go ahead and ignore all of those notifications about on-campus events.

WhatsApp? What’s that? And what do you mean that there was a really easy way to communicate with your professors to ask about assignments, due dates, and general advice for the course?

Decline those annoying phone calls. Dismiss any text notification as soon as you receive it. Nothing is as important to you than your own peace of mind, and university alerts, like assignment updates and instructor check-ins, are simply little annoying things that try to harsh your vibe.

Step 2 — Life Got In The Way

Your professor’s empathy was really touching when they expressed that it would be alright for you to miss a few classes. Ignore everything else they said and just focus on the ‘alright’ part!

Sure, you may have made your class schedule work out with your workplace, and you definitely get 8 hours of sleep each night, but that dang life won’t stop getting in the way.

That’s why it’s okay for you to pick and choose when you go to class. Do you get the Monday blues? I get them too sometimes, and my remedy is to just not come to the campus at all. It usually helps, most definitely, when I get to stay in my bed and laugh at the clock when I think about the rest of my classmates in my Monday classes.

There’s only 31 twice-weekly meetings in Fañomnåkan 2026, and that means that if you start taking your 3-day weekend, you’ll only miss 15 dedicated class sessions. That’s only two weeks worth of classes! You can make that up. Definitely.

And when they question you when you come back from your hiatus, just let them know that you needed to catch up on Heated Rivalry so that you could take over the class with a presentation about Shane Hollander.

Step 3 — Do Everything Last Minute

You’re in a class with only one assignment, assigned from the get-go, due at the very end of the semester.

That just means that you get an entire semester’s worth of vacation time to yourself!

With the deadline so far away, you know you can take this time and do things that you actually want to do. ‘So far away’ means that it’ll never catch up to you, especially if you never start on the assignment.

But we know how this story goes: the deadline does catch up to you, sneaking up on your schedule like a tiger in the grass (except you knew about this tiger when it was miles away from you).

So, because you are a superhero, cram like a maniac on the last day to squeeze out your instructor’s empathy manifested as a minimum grade on Turnitin.

Take this step and apply it to literally everything! Filling out requests for transcripts, any payments at the Bursar’s Office—UOG’s Financial Aid Office especially loves students that do everything at the last minute…

Step 4 — That Was a LOT of Water

When you enter the classroom, be sure to identify the quickest route from your seat to the door. This level of preparation is not intended to be useful when you need to, say, leave the classroom in the event of a fire.

As soon as you’ve taken attendance or had your fill of your instructor’s lecture, it’s time to execute on those plans you made earlier.

Quick! Before they dare to stop you, stand up from your chair and take that pre-planned path straight to the door. Some of the classrooms have really strong air seals, so throw in some elbow grease and escape into the halls of freedom.

Once you’re out of the classroom, it’s open season. You could be true to your word and use UOG’s very clean facilities, but why do that when you could hop on one of those green eco bikes and head to McDonald’s just down the street?

As a matter of fact, if you grabbed your bag on the way out, you could just leave the campus entirely! Like we said earlier, you’re here at the campus on your time.

Step 5 — You DO Have a Phone

The very first step regards how you should use your phone when outside of the classroom. But when you’re inside the classroom, a sudden spark hits your pocket and then you finally remember that you, in fact, do have a smartphone!

What do you use your phone for at home? Entertainment? Video games? Doomscrolling? If it’s any one of these, you should actually do all three. Play a song on Spotify while swiping through Instagram stories. Show your classmate sitting right next to you how cool your Call of Duty: Mobile gun is.

Headphones? What are those? You’re doing your instructor a favor by keeping your ears open and alert. Just make sure that everyone in the class can hear what you’re looking at, too, because they should be included in the fun you’re having— even if you will definitely be thought of as that rude classmate going forward.

Just remember that class time is a perfect time to use your smartphone, especially when your instructor’s lecture is finally starting to make sense.

Now you are ready. There are many more things that you could apply to your college career to successfully fail your classes, but these important steps listed in this guide are foundational to your expertise in avoiding assignments, avoiding professors, and avoiding a degree!