Story Of The Day: University Certainly Had Awful Days

Universities and catastrophic experiences go hand in hand: however, some stand out above the others. In fact, if, on the one hand, there is a whole series of terrible facts that border on normality and seem almost trivial, others dribble by far the apocalyptic.

The most soothing (or frightening, depending on your point of view) is that each faculty has its own, and this means that, perhaps, you might be lucky and see the "least bad" happen.

It is no news that Universities have a mix of people with good, bad, and ugly characters. It is just unfortunate if you meet the terrible ones.

The Test From Outer Space

Imagine studying for a test, and when the questions are handed out, not one of those questions was from what you had the lecturer taught you! I thought I was the only one until I started hearing the rest of the class murmur, and it dawned on us that the lecturer was punishing us.

Earlier on, the lecturer had insisted that all his assignments be printed at his business center. Someone reported him to the faculty. Not knowing who had reported him, he decided the whole class would pay for it. Luckily, by the end of the semester, we all managed to pass the course.

Professor Snape

At least that is what I would like to call him. In my third year, we had to write what was called a seminar. It was a preliminary paper before we were required to do our projects.

I was assigned to this Professor who was supposed to supervise my work. He told me what to do, and I did all that and submitted it to him for approval. He approved, and I was set to present and defend my seminar.

After my defense, when the other professors started with their questions, Professor Snape denied approving my work. This was quite a shocker for me at that point in time.

It would have done me no good arguing with him in front of all the other students and his colleagues. Thankfully, I did an excellent job with the topic, and they gave me a B.

The Lecturer From Hell

Right before exams, some lecturers would be kind enough to give students areas of concentration to help streamline what they read and help them prepare better. This was the highlight when studying for exams. So when this lecturer did the same, we were all glad because the coursework was extensive.

Fast forward to exam day. As the questions landed on our tables, we all realized that the lecturer from hell gave us questions in all other areas besides the areas he had told us to concentrate on.

"If You're Not Loyal, You Will Fail"

I never truly understood the meaning of these words until she came into our class. She was our lecturer, and she had insisted that we had to buy the textbook she wrote or we would fail. She had a list of the names of those who had purchased the book.

After we had hustled money to buy the book, she then said that no matter how hard we read or quoted her text back to her, we would still fail if we were not loyal. This translated to having to pay bribes. We knew that even if we reported, the school would do nothing. The bribe cost me a third of my monthly allowance, and we still had Ds and Es.