Imagine your role model is giving a moving lecture.
You’re sitting in the middle of a crowded auditorium and you’re getting emotional as they reach the climactic point that changed his or her life for the better. 
All your life goals seem reachable as you daydream of one day standing on the stage, sharing your own success story.
You can practically taste the glory when you hear the sound of a person three seats to your right picking up their backpack.
“Excuse me,” the woman in the Nike shorts and tank top says as she attempts to navigate out of her seat in the middle of the row. 
The atmosphere in the room changes. Especially when she accidentally steps on your backpack, and you feel like this woman, who simply couldn’t wait until the end of the speech to leave the room, ruined the whole event.
Fellow LSU students, this is not acceptable behavior.
It’s a growing trend for professors to give college students either extra credit or lightly-weighted assignments that entail covering events on campus, such as documentary screenings and guest lectures.
These opportunities will only benefit students if taken seriously. 
“There are some valuable out-of-class experiences that students may have that they might not engage in if you don’t incentivize them,” said Amy Reynolds, associate dean for Graduate Studies and Research.
Reynolds uses event coverage as one of the many opportunities offered in her Introduction to Mass Media class for participation grades.
As reflected in the class syllabus, students are given the option to cover an event by sending five text-based tweets and one photo tweet.
“I think it’s good experience,” Reynolds said. “Students sometimes don’t realize how enlightening campus events can be, so this is a great way to motivate people to go to these events.” 
While I do believe that extra credit — or in Reynolds’ case, engagement points — is a smart way to encourage attendance at campus events, students treat these opportunities more like easy grade boosters than chances to enhance the learning experience.
Students tend to approach the event with the mentality that they’ll do their tweeting requirements in the first 10 minutes of the event, then discreetly walk out after a job well done. 
I’m going to let you in on a little secret, LSU — everyone will notice when you get up to leave. 
“I know that some of my students do that at events and it’s completely clear when it happens,” Reynolds said. “I’m a big believer that education is a two-way street. I put my part to try to create a good learning environment, but students also have to do their part to get the maximum out of it.” 
Professors create extra credit opportunities and participation grades to give students other ways of earning points beside the run-of-the-mill, multiple-choice tests we all loathe.
Reynolds even gives her students the option of an alternative assignment if they show proof of other responsibilities that conflict with on-campus events. 
We all have hundreds of things to get done. If our schedules don’t allow us to be courteous and stay at an event the whole time, it’s better to just skip it.   
Or at least be smart enough to sit at the end of the row so you don’t step on my backpack when you leave, thank you very much.
 
Jose Bastidas is a 21-year-old mass communication senior from Caracas, Venezuela. You can reach him on Twitter @jabastidas.