25. Amalia
Iset my laptop on the desk and pull up my servers for the demo, my hands trembling just enough that I fumble the keyboard twice. Today is the demo for the weather prediction project, and the knot of nerves in my stomach has been there since I woke up.
It’s not finished yet, and I know this evaluation is only meant to track our progress, but I’m anxious all the same.
Professor Camila walks into the room, and you can tell immediately from the way she glances at her laptop, then her phone, then at us, that she’s in a mood.
Ay, in the name of Gauss, why today of all days?
“Let’s see where your projects stand,” she finally says, and I watch her move from student to student.
Each project draws comments and a furrowed brow, but I remind myself that’s to be expected. The databases and connections are barely in place, and for most people the interface doesn’t even exist yet.
When she reaches me, she crosses her arms and nods for me to begin.
I walk her through the logic behind the algorithm, how I collected data from various meteorological institutes — at least the ones that could provide a dataset without cost — and then I wait.
Her eyes move from my laptop to my face, and I wish I knew what she was thinking because the way she’s looking at me is strange.
“You can do better than this, Amalia.”
I feel the color drain from my face, and I have to look down at my keyboard for a second, because the work I’ve put in so far is solid, and it’s more than most of my classmates have to show.
“I even have the interface nearly finished, and if you look at the generated reports—” I try to explain, at which point a single look from her cuts me off.
Why is she acting like this?
“You haven’t written a single unit test for those functions, not to mention that the accuracy on the edge cases is terrible.” And with that she turns and moves on.
And there it is, that voice in my head, the one I manage to block most of the time, surfacing again.
Telling me I’ve been distracted. That I haven’t dedicated enough to this project.
That I should have slept less and worked more.
That I should have turned down those mentoring gigs instead of spreading myself thin, because this project, this right here, is my future. And I’m messing with it.
That I’m not good enough, if these are my results.
You’re not as smart as you like to think.
If this is the first feedback you got, imagine what the last one will sound like.
Are you even cut out for this?
Why didn’t I write those tests? My rational mind tries to remind me that those functions weren’t in their final form yet and the tests would have been a waste of time at that stage, but the whispers in my brain are louder than logic right now.
They’re saying I was lazy. That I didn’t focus the way I should have.
That I let myself get distracted by things, by people, that had no business taking up so much space in my mind.
Come on, Amalia. She must be having a bad day and decided to take it out on all of you.
And even though the reasoning holds, I feel that voice in the corner of my mind, whispering that I’m making excuses. That I’m not as smart as I think I am if someone with her authority couldn’t see any potential in the project.
And no matter how hard I squeeze my eyes shut and swallow the tightness in my throat, that voice just gets louder.
Professor Camila finishes her rounds and returns to the front of the room, closing her laptop with a sharp little snap that pulls every head up.
“Let me be clear about something,” she says, sweeping her gaze across us.
“This course is for the best. The ones who will go on to build things that matter. I don’t do mediocre, and I don’t pass it either, so if what I saw today is your idea of effort, I suggest you reconsider your priorities.
Or your program.” She picks up her things without waiting for a reaction, and my hands start to shake against the edge of the desk, so I press them flat against my thighs where no one can see.
If you’re not good enough here, you’re not good enough anywhere.