Sofia Hernandez saw her class schedule for the semester, and the first name she saw was Dr. Donald. Her heart nearly skipped a beat. He was the most difficult professor that she had ever heard of. He is known for belittling his students, especially women, because he does not think women should be in the engineering field at all. Her friends who had taken his class both warned her of him and his way of calling out female students on extremely difficult questions, that he knows are hard for everyone.
Sofia began her first day of the Fall 2017 semester with a happy start and was determined to make the best of this year, whether her professors were helpful or not. Finally, the time for Dr. Donald's class arrived. Sofia walked in and saw Dr. Donald asking student's names as they walked in. However, not all the students' names. Just the male students. When Sofia decided to question it, his response was "you girls won't be in my class much longer, why would I bother learning your names?" When Sofia looked shocked at his rude comment, he replied with "I give it one week. It'll be too much for you to handle."
Sofia was warned of his crudeness, but didn't think he would be outright cruel in front of the whole class. Nevertheless, she continued with the class and was determined to prove him wrong. She spent hours in her room studying, and when she needed inspiration, she would call her parents and stare at the motivational posters on the wall. She passed the first three tests with flying colors. Dr. Donald was actually shocked at this, and tried finding evidence that she cheated on those tests. Finally, when he couldn't find any (because there was nothing to find), he began to devise a final exam just for Sofia, which consisted of problems that were of much higher difficulty than the final exams that the rest of the class received.
Sofia, knowing how unreasonable and cruel Dr. Donald could be and knowing how well she was doing in the class, was suspicious of what he may do for her final exam. She began studying a month in advance for her final exam, and spent hours every night going over the material. She read the entire textbook, including material that won't be covered until the next semester. Finally, when the day of the final arrived, Dr. Donald thought she would soon fail the class and have to throw her engineering dreams away. Much to his disappointment, she started working on it immediately. Dr. Donald thought to himself, "Surely she can't answer these questions, even I didn't know how to solve these until my last year of graduate school..." Sofia kept working on the exam until the last minute. When she turned it in, Dr. Donald read through her answers and immediately realized that her intelligence and maturity was far beyond his own. He was fired from teaching the next day, and Sofia received a great job opportunity before even graduating from the university.
Authors Note:
This story is another version of The Monkey Who Gathered Lotuses. The original story was about a monkey king named Devadatta who had many sons. He feared they would take over his kingdom so whenever he encountered one, he killed him. Bodhisatta, however, knew of his father's tactics. He went to him and Devadatta asked him to bring him lotuses from a lake that an ogre lived in. Bodhisatta quickly figured out the trick, and ended up befriending the ogre, which killed Devadatta. Bodhisatta was then named the new king.
I wanted to change the story, but keep the central plot of someone being underestimated and tricked, and having the plan backfire on the villain. I set the story on the OU campus, specifically the life of a female engineering student because I think they are highly underestimated all the time. I replaced Devadatta with Dr. Donald and replaced Bodhisatta with Sofia Hernandez. I decided not to kill Dr. Donald because I think getting fired from such an esteemed position after working so hard for it would be miserable enough.
Hope you guys liked it! Feel free to leave comments/suggestions since this is the first time I've done something like this :-)
Bibliography. Tayodhamma Jataka in The Jataka: Volume 1 translated by Robert Chalmers. Web Source.
Sofia began her first day of the Fall 2017 semester with a happy start and was determined to make the best of this year, whether her professors were helpful or not. Finally, the time for Dr. Donald's class arrived. Sofia walked in and saw Dr. Donald asking student's names as they walked in. However, not all the students' names. Just the male students. When Sofia decided to question it, his response was "you girls won't be in my class much longer, why would I bother learning your names?" When Sofia looked shocked at his rude comment, he replied with "I give it one week. It'll be too much for you to handle."
Sofia was warned of his crudeness, but didn't think he would be outright cruel in front of the whole class. Nevertheless, she continued with the class and was determined to prove him wrong. She spent hours in her room studying, and when she needed inspiration, she would call her parents and stare at the motivational posters on the wall. She passed the first three tests with flying colors. Dr. Donald was actually shocked at this, and tried finding evidence that she cheated on those tests. Finally, when he couldn't find any (because there was nothing to find), he began to devise a final exam just for Sofia, which consisted of problems that were of much higher difficulty than the final exams that the rest of the class received.
Sofia, knowing how unreasonable and cruel Dr. Donald could be and knowing how well she was doing in the class, was suspicious of what he may do for her final exam. She began studying a month in advance for her final exam, and spent hours every night going over the material. She read the entire textbook, including material that won't be covered until the next semester. Finally, when the day of the final arrived, Dr. Donald thought she would soon fail the class and have to throw her engineering dreams away. Much to his disappointment, she started working on it immediately. Dr. Donald thought to himself, "Surely she can't answer these questions, even I didn't know how to solve these until my last year of graduate school..." Sofia kept working on the exam until the last minute. When she turned it in, Dr. Donald read through her answers and immediately realized that her intelligence and maturity was far beyond his own. He was fired from teaching the next day, and Sofia received a great job opportunity before even graduating from the university.
Source: One of the many posters that Sofia has in her room.
Authors Note:
This story is another version of The Monkey Who Gathered Lotuses. The original story was about a monkey king named Devadatta who had many sons. He feared they would take over his kingdom so whenever he encountered one, he killed him. Bodhisatta, however, knew of his father's tactics. He went to him and Devadatta asked him to bring him lotuses from a lake that an ogre lived in. Bodhisatta quickly figured out the trick, and ended up befriending the ogre, which killed Devadatta. Bodhisatta was then named the new king.
I wanted to change the story, but keep the central plot of someone being underestimated and tricked, and having the plan backfire on the villain. I set the story on the OU campus, specifically the life of a female engineering student because I think they are highly underestimated all the time. I replaced Devadatta with Dr. Donald and replaced Bodhisatta with Sofia Hernandez. I decided not to kill Dr. Donald because I think getting fired from such an esteemed position after working so hard for it would be miserable enough.
Hope you guys liked it! Feel free to leave comments/suggestions since this is the first time I've done something like this :-)
Bibliography. Tayodhamma Jataka in The Jataka: Volume 1 translated by Robert Chalmers. Web Source.
Hi there Akriti! This story was very interesting to me! It definitely was a modern play on "The Monkey Who Gathered Lotuses." I remember reading over that one! I liked all the girl power you threw into this story. I can respect that for sure! Also, I was glad you decided to firer Dr. Donald because he seemed absolutely horrible!
ReplyDeleteHi Akriti,
ReplyDeleteYou made a really interesting story from the original version. I like how you added a different view to the story that relates to current feminism issues. It really brought it together. Especially, when Sofia did something that is almost unachievable. This gives out a really powerful message of how hard work can achieve great things.
Hi Akriti,
ReplyDeleteYou made a really interesting story from the original version. I like how you added a different view to the story that relates to current feminism issues. It really brought it together. Especially, when Sofia did something that is almost unachievable. This gives out a really powerful message of how hard work can achieve great things.
Hi Akriti,
ReplyDeleteI loved your combination of the ancient story and a modern setting. My guess is that most people in this class know wonderfully intelligent women who are struggling to gain the respect they deserve in STEM majors. This story gave a really nice "happy ending" for those women. Also I really hope my guess as to your inspiration for the naming of "Dr. Donald" is correct. I look forward to reading more of your stories.
Heck yes, girl power! I love seeing powerful women in the stories, but they're not as common as powerful men, so thank you for illustrating the power and wisdom of them with a female lead! I think it also serves as a great lesson in our society, just as those original sage's tales did. I liked how relatable your story was to a modern day college student.
ReplyDelete