Everyone pays attention, amazingly

"Good morning, everyone," you start, as you always do, then almost jump out of your skin as for the first time ever (at least as far as your own memory is concerned), you get a reply. Not a desultory one, either, but a response in perfect unison from the entire student body present.

It's the start of a lecture like none you have ever given. There are no loud conversations between the students while you're speaking, no rustling of fast food wrappers or slurping of beverages, no bleeping or music from electronic devices, no paper aeroplanes thrown at your back when you turn to write on the blackboards. Even more surprising are the things that do happen. People look at you instead of staring down at their devices and papers, answer spontaneously (and intelligently) when you shout out a question, raise their hands if they want to ask you something and even laugh at your intentionally unfunny jokes.

The whole experience is somewhat surreal and when the lecture comes to an end with the students thanking you simultaneously, you decide to head to your room to do some internet research into how college life is now. What you find is that most universities are surprisingly unaffected by the changes. Certainly girls are spanked when they misbehave, but the staff at the majority of institutions are no more strict than they used to be. Your own college is one of just a few exceptions, proudly proclaiming the most stringent and severe punishment for misbehaviour and academic failure, which is obviously popular as these universities are more oversubscribed than almost any others. You also rank highly on international tables of excellence for higher education, which might have something to do with it.

It's no secret that applicants are assessed on their attractiveness and sexual desirability as well as their aptitude for their desired course and this is not considered discriminatory, nor even particularly noteworthy. Indeed, the Graduate Prospectus lists the option to be trained in the domestic and sexual arts by one's supervisor as one of the perquisites of being granted a place, although romantic entanglements between staff members and their students are still forbidden.

Before closing the computer, you check your schedule for the day. You already know that you have intermediate tutorials in the afternoon and you would normally spend the rest of the morning with your postdoctoral research group, giving advice or working on your monograph. However, Susan apparently has everything under control and didn't seem to expect to see you again today, so you wonder whether you have anything else planned.