In the Beginning...
Monday morning and I was already late for my first class, Basics of Mechanical Engineering. It’s only the second week of class and I’ve already developed a reputation for tardiness. I sprinted down the hallway, darting through the open door just as the large digital clock on the wall changed to 8:00 am. My seat was towards the front so I quickly slid into my seat before the professor turned around. Hopefully he wouldn’t notice how close I had cut it today.
“Mr. Parker, once again you are a hair’s breadth away from being late for my class,” Dr. Belorr boomed as he turned towards the rows of desks in the small room. Crap. I guess he noticed after all. Snickers rippled across the room as I shot up straight in my seat.
I froze in panic, the anxiety of being called out in front of the class grabbing my vocal cords in a death grip. “I’m…s..sorry Dr. Belorr. I’ll do better, I promise!” I managed to choke out, hoping that he would just let it go so I could compact myself lower in my seat to avoid my classmates amused stares.
“I’ll believe it when I see it, Mr. Parker. As for the rest of you, get out your current projects. I will be coming around to gage your progress. Don’t forget the finalized concepts are due on Friday!” Dr. Belorr began walking around the room as students opened their various laptops and notebooks to explain their chosen creation. This project is a big deal, grade-wise. It’s basically our final exam for the class that we’re working on throughout the majority of the semester. It’s pretty basic, though. We’re to design and build a machine that serves a function, preferably one that doesn’t already exist in mass-production. To be fair, this is actually pretty complicated for an intro class and my classmates are starting to show signs of distress as Dr. Belorr makes his way around the room. I’m guessing they aren’t as far along as they should be at this point. I’m just a little jaded considering the types of projects I’m usually working on in my spare time make this project look like busy work, at best. Which is probably why I procrastinated this initial design until the last minute.
I’d just finished booting up my laptop when Dr. Belorr stopped at my desk. He waited patiently while I opened AutoCAD and pulled up my preliminary designs. It wasn’t my best work, but I didn’t have a lot of time over the weekend to work on it between my responsibilities as Spider-Man and at Stark Industries. I just hope it’s good enough to get him off my back a little bit. I’m a good student, I swear, but getting out of my apartment in time for class is hard when I’m up half the night working in one way or another. Once the file loaded up properly, I turned my screen towards Dr. Belorr and held my breath while he looked it over. After the longest minute of my life, he straightened up and stared at me with raised eyebrows.
After a solid thirty seconds of staring, I cracked from anxiety. “Is there something wrong, Dr. Belorr? I know it’s not perfect, I didn’t have a lot of free time to work on it this weekend, but I think you can tell where I’m trying to go with this project. Right?” My right leg broke free of my control and started vibrating sporadically.
His eyebrows shot up a little more and a frown flitted across his face. “You’re claiming to have designed this yourself?” I stared up at him confused, and the slight frown on his face deepened. “These designs are professional quality. As in, things I expect to see in graduate level work, not an introductory class. Who did you have create these for you?”
I just blinked at him for a moment before replying slowly, “I did these myself. No one had to help me. I’ve been doing mock-ups like this for years now with my job.” I really didn’t want to get into the details of my job in front of all of the other students. Did he really think I was so lazy that I would cheat just to get out of having to do a time-consuming project?
“Really, and where exactly do you work?”
“….Stark Industries in New York,” I say quietly, hoping that none of my classmates notice.
He laughed sarcastically and said, “You… You’re really trying to convince me that you work for one of the leading tech companies on the planet? What do you do, sweep floors? Fetch coffee? You’re how old? 18-19? You couldn’t possibly be in a position to be making designs like these. Tell your work friend or whoever made these thanks, but from now on you need to do your own work or I will fail you. Allowing someone else to do your work for you is still plagiarism, you know.” He continued to chuckle under his breath as he moved on to the next student. I glanced about and realized that all of the students near me had heard his little speech and were looking at me with equal parts sympathy and derision. Great, ostracized in the first month of class. Good going, Parker. I slumped further down in my seat and prayed for the end of class.