Sail across the sea

Chapter 350 This behavior corrupts the academic atmosphere

The roommates all knew about the surfactant research project; it was a perk Gao Fan had arranged for them. Gao Fan wasn't confident that a group of lower-year undergraduates could produce anything amazing, and neither were his roommates.

People will feel indebted to Gao Fan because of this project, but at the same time they also feel that these expenses are paid by Gao Fan's company, which is public money, so they can accept them without any guilt.

With this mindset, most of the students in the dormitory followed Gao Fan's instructions, using their spare time to go to the library to look up some information, photocopy the useful documents, and then write a review article regularly to submit to the group leader Wu Zixian, which was considered to have completed their task.

This situation is somewhat similar to that of graduate students in later generations. The supervisor assigns some tasks, and the graduate students eat and play as usual. The night before the deadline, they cram some information, write a PPT, and give a passable report at the group meeting the next day. That is considered to have completed the task, and no one feels that there is anything wrong with it.

Among them, Wu Zixian and Chen Chuanlin are the ones with a strong sense of morality. They always felt that if they didn't produce something after taking Gao Fan's money, they would be letting their roommate down.

Wu Zixian was originally a diligent and good student. After receiving the assignment, he spent a lot of time reading materials and conducting experiments, and he did come up with some good ideas. Chen Chuanlin's academic performance was not as good as Wu Zixian's, so he did his best to be a good assistant to Wu Zixian, which was considered to be some contribution, and he was worthy of the allowance he received.

Gao Fan could deduce these facts from the correspondence between Wu Zixian and himself. He wasn't dissatisfied with the performance of his other roommates; everyone has their own ambitions, and he hadn't originally intended to buy anyone's loyalty.

"Has working on this project interfered with everyone's studies?" Gao Fan asked the two of them.

"No," Chen Chuanlin said. "We were originally studying organic chemistry, and doing this project has been quite helpful to everyone."

Pan Chang laughed and said, "That's right. In the organic chemistry exam last semester, our dormitory had the highest score in the class. The bonus question that Lao Wang put on the back of the paper was exactly this kind of question. No one else had ever seen it before, but everyone in our dormitory solved it, which really impressed Lao Wang."

The "Old Wang" he mentioned refers to the teacher of the organic chemistry course. In those days, university exams were relatively casual, and some teachers would put two bonus questions at the end of the exam paper, just like high school teachers would, to test students' understanding of extracurricular knowledge.

Undergraduates don't usually read academic journal articles, so their extracurricular knowledge is relatively lacking. Even if the students in dormitory 449 didn't take Gao Fan's research too seriously, they would at least do some research and put in some effort. Naturally, they had an advantage when faced with this kind of bonus question.

"That's good," Gao Fan said. "I was worried that if I gave everyone tasks to do, it would affect their studies, and then the department would come after me. Now that things are like this, I can rest assured."

“The professors in the department already know about this,” Pan Chang said. “I heard that some professors are complaining, saying that such a project is not assigned to professors or graduate students.”

“I also found a research topic for the teacher,” Gao Fan said.

Pan Chang said, "You didn't find research topics for every teacher. You must have learned the saying, 'It's not scarcity that's the problem, but inequality,' right?"

Gao Fan shrugged and said nothing. Following Hai Qingwen and Yang Kai, Gao Fan also found more than a dozen teachers in the Department of Chemical Engineering to help with some scientific research. Some graduate students also went to Cangtang to participate in related scientific research activities on cleaning agents, vitamins and other projects.

However, as Pan Chang said, he didn't extend the benefits to all teachers equally. This was partly due to mismatched specializations or individual limitations, and partly due to some teachers being overly demanding. Some teachers felt that Gao Fan was a chemical engineering student, while Canghua Science and Trade was a small, collectively owned enterprise, so they always tried to act superior, looking down on the projects Gao Fan asked them to do as being too low-level and unworthy of their status. Gao Fan avoided such teachers after just one encounter. He wasn't being a fool; why should he bother with their unpleasant attitudes?
When the conversation turned to work in the afternoon, Gao Fan left his dormitory and headed to the department office. His first stop was naturally the academic affairs office, where he greeted the academic affairs secretary, Zheng Xiuhua.

"Gao Fan, are you just going to keep applying for exemptions like this?"

Zheng Xiuhua frowned and asked Gao Fan when she saw him.

"What do you mean by that, Sister Zheng?" Gao Fan asked with a grin. Zheng Xiuhua was almost fifty, and the students secretly called her Grandma Zheng, but Gao Fan called her Sister, which was his way of being cute and trying to get rid of her.

Zheng Xiuhua seemed quite pleased with the nickname; a smile appeared on her face, but it only lasted for half a second before her expression darkened again, and she said:

“Some teachers have complained to the department, saying that your behavior has corrupted the academic atmosphere and that you have also used money to corrupt your classmates, hiring them to develop products for your company, which has delayed their studies.”

Gao Fan then realized that a teacher was dissatisfied with him and was using this as an excuse to make trouble, which matched what Pan Chang had just told him.

He said, “Professor Zheng, I just came from the dormitory. My roommates told me that they use their spare time to look up information and do research. Not only does it not affect their studies, but it also promotes their learning. In the organic chemistry class last semester, Professor Wang gave us an extra question that none of the students in the class could solve, but all seven of us in the dormitory could solve it.”

“That’s true,” Zheng Xiuhua said. “So these teachers said that these seven students have such strong research abilities, and if they hadn’t been corrupted by you, Gao Fan, and focused solely on making money, they would definitely have achieved even better results.”

"This is fucking possible!" Gao Fan blurted out a curse.

I knew some intellectuals were shameless, but I never imagined they could be this shameless. They actually interpreted the organic chemistry class incident in this way.

"Don't start swearing at such a young age!" Zheng Xiuhua glared at Gao Fan and then said, "You must know why those teachers are targeting you, right? Didn't you notice that the exam papers were different from the past when you took the exemption exam this semester?"

To apply for exemption from a course at a university, you first need to take an exemption exam. This exam is a test of similar difficulty to the course's final exam. If you score 80 or above, it means you have mastered the material and can be exempted from the course.

For the past few semesters, Gao Fan had returned to school at the beginning of each semester to take the exemption exams, and he had scored above 80 in every course. However, this semester's exemption exams included two courses with extremely difficult papers, far beyond the level of undergraduate exams, and Gao Fan had to put in considerable effort to pass them.

Now, judging from Zheng Xiuhua's words, these two exam papers were actually deliberately aimed at him.

(End of this chapter)