Senior passes off Khan Academy video as thesis presentation

Humor by Richard Coca
May 26, 2020, 8:10 p.m.

With the end of spring quarter in sight, thesis deadlines and presentations loom on the horizon for many seniors hoping to graduate with honors. Senior Sal Khan ’20 decided to play a Khan Academy video on molecular biology to try to defend his honors thesis.

“It was really genius,” said Khan. “I realized everyone is dozing off by the sixth thesis presentation so I just decided to share my screen and hit play on the ‘Intro to Molecular Biology’ video. My advisors heard the word kinase thrown around every now and then and they were content.”

Since Khan’s strategy successfully worked, other seniors have expressed mixed reactions.

“I spent three hours setting up a bunch of lamps to get good lighting. You’re telling me they weren’t even paying attention,” said Emily Edison ‘20.

While some students were frustrated, others were much more envious of Khan’s presentation.

“Bro, if I knew I could do that, I would have played a John Green crash course video instead of having to memorize so many different historians’ points of view,” said David Hume ’20.

Current projections show that the Class of 2020 will see an unprecedented rise in successful honor thesis defenses and that Zoom likely will play a role.

Editor’s Note: This article is purely satirical and fictitious. All attributions in this article are not genuine and this story should be read in the context of pure entertainment only.

Contact Richard Coca at richcoca ‘at’ stanford.edu.

Richard Coca '22 has previously served as editor of The Grind for volume 258, managing editor of Satire in vol. 257, and CLIP Co-chair in vol. 255. He is majoring in Human Biology and minoring in Anthropology. Contact him at rcoca 'at' stanforddaily.com.

Login or create an account

Apply to The Daily’s High School Summer Program

Priority deadline is april 14

Days
Hours
Minutes
Seconds