Have you ever had such a lazy and demanding professor?

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Good afternoon, dear MyLot friends. This afternoon I’m going to share my latest university tragicomedy with you. For some context, this semester I took the Topography II course with a professor I’ll call Mr. Z. Due to events in the previous semester with the Topography I course, my classmates decided that the delegate for this semester had to be a woman (they thought Mr. Z. might show us a bit more compassion compared to the last semester). Unfortunately for me, I’m the only woman in the class (only seven of us passed), so I was named the delegate for the Topography II course, what joy. Given this choice, in which I had no say, one might think, “Hey! Don’t stress, everyone handles their own problems.” Well, nope! Let me tell you, in Topography II ALL assignments are group-based, and since there are so few of us, our group was the entire class. So, I ended up taking responsibility for 2 dolphins, 1 monkey, 1 turtle, and 2 potatoes. To make matters worse, Mr. Z.’s “classes” followed this routine: “Grab a piece of lab equipment (the Cygnus Total Station, because he doesn’t know how to operate anything more advanced), read the manual, I’ll mark your attendance,” and he wouldn’t show up for the next three hours. Basically, I had to teach my classmates how to use a piece of equipment almost as old as I am, which I was still learning myself. What a lovely way to grow some gray hairs. With all that said, you might think Mr. Z. wouldn’t be too demanding when grading. But let me tell you, no! Mr. Z. is infamous at the university as a grumpy old man who loves failing his students, allowing only 20% to pass his class. To ensure my class didn’t fail, I forced them to attend double sessions, work hard, and deeply learn the equipment’s functionality, the process of topographic surveys using equipment so outdated that the manuals reference Windows XP, adapting programs to modern devices, processing geodata both in the field and in the office, and producing high-quality plans. All of this, just to pass. Despite his stingy grading, the marks we earned were pretty good, considering this grumpy old man loves to fail students for fun. My friends and I went out to celebrate the fact that we passed all our courses when my classmates informed me that one student was missing from the final grade sheet. That’s when they told me the other section had given Mr. Z. a “little gift” to boost their grades. But Mr. Z. only agreed under the condition that he would fail one of them randomly. To the misfortune of some, they sacrificed Roger, one of the few who actually worked hard throughout the semester.