Notice: All the names are pseudonyms. This story is adapted from a true story that I heard of in the university. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events or persons is entirely coincidental.

 

I was Chris Wong, who was a year one student at the City University of Hong Kong, who studied Chinese and History. I had to form a group of four with my classmate in a course which was about methods of studying humanities. Professor Dr Smith was a very strict teacher. She always blamed someone who had not read all the assigned reading before her lessons. Apart from that, she valued all the group presentations.

 

Well… perhaps it was a better idea for me to focus on my groupmates. When I first stepped into the lecture hall, I saw a lot of new faces. I was a bit anxious about forming a group because I was shy. Fortunately, I formed a group with the help of Dr Smith. However, things did not go well after forming a group.

 

Let me introduce my groupmates first. My groupmates were Peter, Mary and Sam. Peter and Mary were really helpful and punctual. They attended every group meeting before our presentation day. On the contrary, Sam was busy because he was an athlete. He did not join any of our group meetings because our group meeting days coincided with his training days. We did not know whether Sam knew what we had done during all the group meetings but I hoped that he would do his works because Dr Smith would give a group mark. That meant if one of us did not do anything, we would receive a poor grade which could affect our overall results of the course.

 

After our last group meeting before our presentation day, we still did not see Sam. We asked him what happened in our Whatsapp group but there was no reply. We realized that Sam was a freerider*. Ah… that sucked because we had to do all his work.

 

During the presentation day, Sam sent a message on Whatsapp suddenly. He said that he was at the airport. He was going to participate in a competition in a country. After that, he left a very long voice message which was his part of our presentation. He told us to send his message to Dr Smith. We tried to call him but he was missing now! Perhaps he had left Hong Kong already.

 

Anyway, we still had to continue our presentation. When it came to Sam’s part, we just carried his voice message to Dr Smith through a speaker. I said, “The following voice message is Sam’s presentation. He is absent because he has to leave Hong Kong and take part in a competition. Also, please familiarize yourself with Sam’s presentation slides.” After that, I delivered Sam’s voice message.

 

In the meantime, Dr Smith was in a rage. She was angry like a bull with a red cloth on her face. Meanwhile, I pleaded to Jesus and all the deities that our grades would not be affected because Sam could not answer Dr Smith’s follow-up questions. It seemed that Sam was training Dr Smith to take the DSE listening exam. Perhaps I would play “Green Sleeves” before delivering Sam’s voice message.

 

After our presentation, Dr Smith’s eyes were filled with anger. She said angrily, “I don’t know why someone has to concentrate on sports only. Can’t he play sports after studying?” She was kind to us. She awarded us a good grade. However, Sam failed the whole subject because he was unable to answer all the follow-up questions. I realized that I had to find groupmates carefully next time.

 

Although this story ended, I had just embarked on my university adventure.

 

*Freerider: a groupmate who does not make any contribution to a project. He even misses all the group presentations. Notably, he was a burden to his groupmates.