Satire: Iowa State creates PSYCH 317 class to help teach patience and boost in person attendance
By Omar Waheed, [email protected]
A new class for students to take, PSYCH 317 aims to get students to actually show up and pay attention in their classes
February 18, 2022
Just like your favorite streaming service, Iowa State also enjoys a good refresh on its content every now and then. Some classes are dropped from the registrar as interest wanes and others are created once the wizards sitting atop the campanile deem them necessary.
One class deemed necessary and recently approved is PSYCH 317: Practicing Patience. A course that aims to not only teach students the importance of patience but also beef up attendance at Iowa State in-person lectures.
PSYCH 317 is a class that is on track to set a lot of firsts as far as class structure goes. For one, PSYCH 317 will not meet in a designated class at all. The class will instead practice their patience by sitting in on various 400 level lectures across campus. Due to COVID and online classes lecture attendance have been struggling university-wide and so the powers that be hope that PSYCH 317 will help to fill those empty lecture halls back up, and help the University marketing team take better classroom photos for brochures and pamphlets.
During these lectures the students will practice their ability to patiently sit and listen to a passionless professor drone on about topics that will never relate back to their lives. The aim is to set realistic goals for all students, and so while no student is expected to last an entire lecture without TikTok, students are graded on the amount of time they are able to give their undivided attention before inevitably pulling out their laptop and catching up on the latest episode of Euphoria.
The class final will also be unorthodox. The final will be given after finals week, during the graduation ceremony for the semester.
Students are expected to last the entire ceremony and use their skills learned during the semester to attempt and not fall asleep during the commencement speech. For students interested, PSYCH 317 will begin to run in the 2022 Fall Semester and registration for the class will begin 2 weeks after normal classes begin. Those who wish to enroll will just have to be patient and wait.
