When the end of the semester quickly approaches, one of the biggest certainties is bound to happen: the extra credit request. It never fails. I get requests from people I am pretty sure I never met in class before, or at the very least, that I can’t put a name to a face.

I think I might have developed a workaround for all those students who ask for extra credit when they won’t do the regular work. It is a little cruel, but I think it will do wonders for your mental health when it comes to dealing with such annoyances.

During my tenure as a professor, I realized that students who do absolutely nothing are willing to sacrifice their firstborns to improve their grades. Forget about doing the work assigned in class that is worth huge chunks of the grade. That’s the sort of thing suckers would do. Instead, put all the effort into an assignment spontaneously made up and worth very little in the long run. I never understood this mentality and why so many students swear by it. Extra credit never does anybody any good. It is truly stress-inducing for the professor because some of us are bleeding hearts that have trouble telling people no.

My solution to this quandary is simple. Give extra credit work, but make it worthless. I am not saying you waste a student’s time, but see how dedicated a student is to the cause. Whatever you decide to give as extra credit, make sure it is only worth one point. One point will not make any difference in the grand scheme of things in your gradebook. Whether you ask them to attend an event, write an event summary, or complete another assignment, ensure that you grant no more than one point for their efforts.

I modeled this after a Penn and Teller game called Desert Bus. It was a video game where the player drove a bus from Tucson to Las Vegas for 8 hours of real game time. There was no action on the screen. Just the player driving a bus, and they had to steer the thing because it was programmed to fall off the road if the controller was left unattended. What happens if the player makes it to Las Vegas after sitting on their couch for 8 hours driving in a sensory deprivation tank? They get one point. That is it. Supposedly, the high score is 99. That means there are 99 continuous trips to Las Vegas. I don’t know who has the time to do that, but somebody did. I applaud them for doing well at a game with the sole purpose of sensory deprivation.

I will apply extra credit this way from now on. It may seem cruel, but if a student is willing to do bonehead things that are way harder to earn points instead of doing the assigned work, why stop them?