“Ms. DoRight, At this point in the semester, is it acceptable to grade grub? I’m doing real bad in my English composition class, so I want to start doing nice things for my professor. Would it be that inappropriate to maybe buy her a Starbucks gift card, or maybe a fruit basket? I want to do good on my final paper, so I also thought I could buy her a drink to butter her up.”
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Ms. DoRight,

At this point in the semester, is it acceptable to grade grub? I’m doing real bad in my English composition class, so I want to start doing nice things for my professor. Would it be that inappropriate to maybe buy her a Starbucks gift card, or maybe a fruit basket? I want to do good on my final paper, so I also thought I could buy her a drink to butter her up. I won’t do it if it’s too inappropriate.

Signed,

Brown noser
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Brown noser,

Well, damn right you’re doing real bad. Trying to buy your professor off might be your only chance.
Your hesitation in this matter is warranted, though. There might be rules against buying things for your professors in order to receive a better grade. It’s like bribing a public official.
If you insist on buying things instead of actually working toward a better grade, that’s up to you, but keep in mind who you’re dealing with. Professors aren’t like your friends. Some people aren’t sure if they’re actually human, which makes their tastes very hard to define.
If you bought your professor a $5 Starbucks gift card, it would show minimal effort, but it would be an effort nonetheless. However, professors usually have fancy tastes in things like coffee. Most of them won’t settle for plain coffee, which means a $5 gift card might buy a small caramel macchiato. Just like that, your thoughtful gift turns into chump change.
Buying fruit for your professor could be a potentially dangerous venture. What if the fruit has bugs in it? What if she gets sick from it? Organic food is pretty trendy right now. What if that’s all your professor eats, but you can’t afford it, so you buy non-organic and your professor gets sick from the pesticides. She could even die, and you would be a suspect.
Taking your professor out for a drink is not a good idea. For starters, you would have to kidnap her because she would refuse your offer for a drink. Then, when you got to the bar, you would have to buy her very expensive drinks before she called the cops. That watery Bud Light won’t cut it in this situation.
Basically, the best idea is to turn in a good final. That’s probably a lot easier than trying to figure out what kind of gift your professor would want.

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