Taking a look from the other side of the class room

We, the students, say about Prof. Dr. J. that he is the living proof that the cafeteria food cannot be bad for your health because he has been eating in that cafeteria every day for almost 50 years.

Some, however, say that the big mole on his bald forehead proves the contrary.

Indeed, Prof. Dr. J. eats in the cafeteria with us every day. He never goes to the more expensive restaurants on the campus and he always prefers spending his lunch break with his students than with his fellow professors.

We consider him more like a grandfather than a strict professor, who seems to be too arrogant to talk to his students.

He gives us the impression that he really cares about us, his students, and wants to know what is going on in our lives.

The other day, he seemed quite nervous while having lunch with us. One of his students would have her final exam the next day. I was surprised and a bit naive. Why would a professor be as nervous about an exam as the student? After all, the professor had taken thousands of exams in his life, for the student all her future career depended on it.

Yes, he told us, he was nervous, too, because as a professor you want your students to get the best marks possible. So, you spend all day long thinking how to formulate the questions.

Final exams were no routine, where you would use the same questions every time. You would consider each student and choose the questions according to them.

I wouldn’t have thought that our professors take so much time thinking about us.

In the end, the student who had the exam that day told me that the exam was really easy and that he had asked her about things she had studies ever since her first year.