--- title: Hilarious College Essay Mistake Goes Viral description: A college student accidentally turned in a paper with her professor's funny nickname on it instead of his real name — to Twitter's delight. canonical: https://time.com/5403063/essay-mistake-professor/ author: Raisa Bruner article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-09-21T16:13:53.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:47:13.922Z og:title: Student's Regrettable Essay Snafu Is One for the Books og:description: Her unprofessional nickname for the professor has gone viral on Twitter og:url: https://time.com/5403063/essay-mistake-professor/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Student's Regrettable Essay Snafu Is One for the Books twitter:description: Her unprofessional nickname for the professor has gone viral on Twitter twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Student's Essay Snafu Is Really One for the Books > Sponsored content. 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Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-brief-2026q3/newsletters?i=e5afcbdb-8471-4b5c-bb6e-389b6f0b6bd1&cr=time-nl-brief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Fresh Advice for College Freshmen [Watch (HLS stream): Fresh Advice for College Freshmen](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/vjOkYmTH.m3u8) (1:50)  _Published 2016-08-30. Useful tips from (mostly) recent graduates._  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Sep 21, 2018 4:13 PM UTC  by [Raisa Bruner](https://time.com/author/raisa-bruner/)  ## Raisa Bruner Sep 21, 2018 4:13 PM UTC We’ve all made a [typo](http://time.com/5124763/stephen-colbert-state-of-the-union-typo/) here or there. Sometimes, we even submit finished work without fully proofreading. Usually the error is harmless enough. But for one student, her mistake ended up becoming a viral sensation after she shared the snafu on social media—and the professor had something to say. In what she referred to as a “series of [unfortunate events](http://time.com/4633471/a-series-of-unfortunate-events-netflix-neil-patrick-harris/),” Ohio University student Zoe Oxley tweeted out screenshots of her process of submitting an essay to her [college](http://time.com/5395131/college-bias-kavanaugh-diversity/) professor through an online portal. She realized—too late—that in the header of her paper, she had left a placeholder name for the professor, and it was not quite appropriate for educational settings. “Unfortunately, I could not remember your last name, so I filled it with something completely unprofessional,” she wrote in a follow-up email to the teacher; we now know he is one Professor Hendel. “It was my intention to change the name before submission, but it completely slipped my mind,” she continued, apologizing profusely for the error. The professor also took to Twitter to share his experience: after receiving the email, he wrote, he “was like ‘Thanks, whatever, nbd.’ Then I got to their paper,” and the name choice was slightly less of a “nbd” situation. Both the student and the professor have since gone viral on Twitter, getting over 300,000 likes each on their respective posts. Let’s hope someone brings this up in class next week—and they can share a laugh over the unlikely development of the story. Hendel [is a playwright](https://ohioplaywriting.org/2015/07/14/ohio-alum-john-hendel-will-appear-on-jeopardy-tomorrow/), after all, so maybe he’ll get some good content out of this at the very least. > [](https://twitter.com/Zoeyoxley/status/1042644630150569986) > [](https://twitter.com/Hendyhendel/status/1042475666678198272) Plus, now others are sharing their embarrassing essay submission stories. > [](https://twitter.com/bauldlad/status/1042921035664900096) > [](https://twitter.com/tropiusss/status/1042975083575304193) ## Transcript I think one thing that college freshmen should start doing is just to start to think of themselves as adults. Like, you're an adult now. You're 18 years old, you're not a child. This is gonna be the easiest time of your life to make friends. My biggest piece of advice for college freshman is to resists the urge to skip class, especially your morning ones Because it's going to be the first time in your life that no one's actually forcing you to go to class, you will fall behind, and you will have professors that won't care if you fall behind. I think within the first couple of weeks you should probably join as many professional organizations as you think you can handle. My advice for college freshman is to stay away from signing up with credit cards. You can go down a very, very bad path. For me I always did the hardest task first. So, if that was starting a paper or doing my math homework, I started there and save my easier homework for where my brain was fried. My advice for college freshmen would be to actually go to class, because you're paying thousand of dollars to go to school, so you might as well Make use of it. My advice to college freshman, and really for any college student is just to take advantage of as many internships and extracurricular activities as you can because you as you can learn as much outside of the classroom as you can in it. One piece of advice for college freshmen is to consider study abroad opportunities That aren't the traditional study abroad. So you're not necessarily going away for an entire semester. But you might go away for say, three weeks. My advice for college freshmen is the same advice that my dad gave me when I went off to college. Don't study the subject, study the teacher. Find the department where the really good teachers are, and the really interesting teachers are. And study that. 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