Lavender Walls

Student Steals Laptop from Prof

Mike sent me the link to this entryaccommodation in Nice a few days ago. A professor at Berkeley had his laptop stolen by a student in class who was apparently desperate for exam info.

Now, why would anyone be stupid enough to steal a laptop right under the prof's nose and in front of everybody else? Mike's guess was that the culprit probably took it at the end of class when the prof was answering questions at the end of the lecture and when the students were packing up and filing out of the classroom. No one would be able to notice something like this in such a congested environment.

After the incident, the prof made a long speech on webcast during one of his lectures. I could not help laughing when I read the speech because it honestly sounded slightly humourous to me. It sounded like an overblown scare tactic. Basically, the prof was saying that he had valuable and confidential information stored in the laptop and that the university can track him anywhere if he plugged it into any one of the outlets on campus. Moreover, if the student was caught, he/she could face some serious charges including expulsion from the university and imprisonment. The prof also stated at the end that he was the only person who could help the culprit if he/she would turn his laptop into his office by a designated time.

Oh boy. This student is in deep trouble. The doofus definitely incurred the wrath of his professor. How can a young, bright and promising individual and a Cal student at that resort to something as low-handed as this? My opinion is that the student probably didn't even bother to go to class, take notes, do the lecture readings, attend the lab sessions and probably partied or slacked off too much. I think that students are driven to desperate situations such as this when they don't take their studies seriously. Really, this is UCBerkeley we are talking about, right? Students who go there were most likely the cream of the crop in their high school classes. The valedictorians, those who scored high on the SATs, took as many AP (or IB) classes as they could and who didn't get anything short of an A while miraculously finding time to involve themselves in extra-curricular activities and/or sports. These are bright, well-rounded individuals with a promising future ahead of them. Obviously, the person must have neglected their studies to the extent that they felt they had to resort to taking a drastic measure such as this.

The prof definitely sounded like he was extremely irate, but it leaves me wondering whether he purposely exaggerated his circumstances or blew things out of proportion just to scare the kid into submission. He also gave the kid an ultimatum at the end where he demanded the return of his laptop or be subject to the ugly consequences of his crime.

If what the prof said was completely true, I certainly hope he put a security lock on his files and on the exam data.