Thank you for starting this topic. IMHO this is a valid question.
Is there any benefit in switching off lights nowadays?
It is true that times change, incandescent is being phased out, fluorescent took its place and now LED is anticipated to dominate the market. However, the lighting control process did not change much. This still involves producing power, distribution, switching loads ON/OFF, maintaining bulbs(manufacturing, distribution, replacing, cleaning, recycling) etc. Just the parameters march in time, and so does the "beneficial" behaviour.
So, after defining what "benefit" is, what are the actual gains and losses, this process can be characterised and objective answer can be given.
In case of OP the answer is quite simple since benefit involves only the negative factors of work and planning needed to click on the light switches, fights with professor, the discomfort when there is not enough light to pass the corridor, the need for bulb replacement. There is no energy cost involved in his "benefit" concept. This is quite a special case but only under these conditions described the question posed can be answered.
Of course I cannot show you a precise mathematical model of lighting environment but I can give some guidelines how to build it and understand if these behaviours are beneficial or not.
1. When considering the "benefit" model, imagine that you are not a unique person and there are millions (of clones) around with similar behaviour, who start kettle at the same time as you do. Don't count 5W bulb but X millions of 5W bulbs. All of them click ON/OFF straining input caps, there are M factories that constantly spill out bulbs to supply them, N processing plants that recycle worn-out LEDs, P electricians running around and fixing worn out switches, etc.
2. The switching ON or OFF the light comes at a price. This is mostly inconvenience, cost of accidents that happen because of darkness, but also some fixed cost of the necessity of including gazillions of switches and wiring and maintaining this additional part. Keep in mind this is not how street lighting is managed - it is turned on once and turned off once, per day.
3. It is clear that varying the efficacy of light, at some point of development, with other factors fixed, it is less and less "beneficial" to tightly control the energy used by the bulbs.
Can anyone link some papers that describe the "benefit" process? I'd be interested to analyse some coarse approximation with 3-4 parameters. The real world process is of course very complicated, that is obvious I hope. But it does exist, same as "beneficial" behaviour.