Sweating for marks

So having spent three or four years at the university, students wrap up their last year by presenting their final year project to their professors. Now one would think this is easy since it’s the same professors that taught them in the course of the year. Well it’s not always the case.During this time other people are allowed to come and watch. I don’t know if this is good for the presenters because from what I saw, it seemed like they would have preferred to be in a room alone with their professors. Anyway, the audience was treated to free drama when one guy came on to the stage and before he was asked to commence, his shirt was already water wet. One would think someone poured a bucket of water on the poor fellow. I observed and noticed that the professors took note of his nervousness and they seemed to enjoy it. The man fumbled with words, his legs were shaking like a newborn calf trying to walk.So normally they give 10 minutes to each presenter. One student came and used four out of the 10 minutes. The professors were in shock and they asked him to come back the following year. Then came the student with the big project, just from the set-up of his apparatus, one could tell how amazing it was. He stood comfortably and explained it all out. From the start everyone could tell he was the winner. Time for demonstration came and the apparatus failed him, the damn thing couldn’t work. The man panicked and tried all he could, he pleaded with the machine to work but all in vain. He turned to the professors to ask for mercy with begging eyes. The professors looked back at him with eyes saying “show us what we want to see, that’s all”. Have you ever seen a man speaking to a machine in his native language? He cried out to the professors to hear him out but they asked him to move aside, literally telling him to try again next year. Then someone else finally came with a very shallow project. He explained it but it looked like secondary school work which isn’t something a university student should waste time on. After what seemed like endless talking, he could just see that it wasn’t good enough so he shouted to the professors.“I know you don’t like me but please don’t put your wrath on my project,” trying to get the audience’s attention. Guess what, people cheered and screamed and clapped for the man!