Math Class

You look at the course description again right before you enter: intro to discrete mathematics and number theory. This will be fun. If fun means miserable, if it means pulling your hair out.

The buzzword that you've heard is 'learning loss.' Well you definitely can confirm that you have some seriously lost learning when it comes to math. You have no idea what discrete mathematics or number theory are, but they're new things, and that's scary enough.

You glance around the class as you sit down and are greeted with at least one blessing: Alice, Emma, Madison, and the latina girl from yoga are all in this class. None of them are sitting together, but each of them glances at you. Alice and Madison wave. Emma just smirks. Maybe if you have a hot professor, this class could be great no matter how painful the math is.

In walks an overweight, balding man with a ketchup stain on his button-down shirt that you suppose no one is going to comment on, including you.

"Hello class!" He says from his podium. "My name is Professor Ketchum," dooming you to remember him forever as Professor Ketchup. "Many professors start their first day with a syllabus and introduction. But we have a lot to get through and I have no interest in that. Instead, I want to perform a benchmark test to determine what you know already. My TAs are passing it out as we speak."

A series of stressed out students hurry between the rows, passing out papers. A low roar starts in the class and then escalates. Soon its sheer volume has eclipsed any chance Professor Ketchup has of calming it. He looks horrified, shocked, as if this somehow wasn't expected. Then he reaches under his podium, pulls out a gavel, and bangs it so hard that it actually cuts the class off.

"Fine, I understand," he wipes sweat from his brow. "Since it is our first day back after lockdown, I will be unusually generous. You may do your benchmark test on your own, or you may work with a partner. Just know that I am giving this test in order to determine your capability, and if you work with a partner my statistics will not be as good, and it will be harder to determine the place where we must start in order to..."

You let him go on as you consider the various girls in the room. Or perhaps the possibility of going with his original plan, and taking the test on your own?