Navigating the Challenges of Proposal Defense || 10% Beneficiary to @steem-nations

Hi everyone, how are you all? I hope you are doing well. Life has returned to the same routine — wake up, get ready, attend university, attend lectures, and come home. The only good thing is having fun and chatting with friends. This semester is even tougher because our FYP (final year project) has started. But before that phase, there was another phase — the proposal defense. We had to pitch 3 proposals, and jury members would have issues with them, and we had to defend them. The jury consists of our university’s teachers. Now it’s everyone’s luck who gets what kind of jury. I got a good jury, but they say no work can go smoothly.

In our jury, one teacher had issues with every student’s proposal. They didn’t like anything and were demotivating us while sitting there. They didn’t approve anyone’s project right away, most of the students’ three projects were rejected, and some students were just asked to add features, like us. It happened something like this — I was at my phopo’s house, and from there my university’s north campus was very close, just a 15-minute drive, and from my house, it’s a 1-hour drive. That’s why I went from there with my cousin. We had to be there by 9 in the morning, and our defense was at 9:15. Our group was the first one, and thank God we reached on time.

Then we had some discussion and were taken to the room where I started pitching the first proposal. But guess what? That one typical rude teacher just stopped me and said, "What is this? How can you make this?" We were making an app to improve management, and they were saying, "Who are you people to speak like this?" I was surprised, like, what are they saying? Let me properly define my proposal. Anyway, one teacher understood our point and supported us, and they weren’t on our jury. They came in place of an absent miss, and that teacher is famous in the university for the worst teacher award. But we liked them a lot, not because they supported us, but because we liked them from the start. Whenever we have gone to them, they have talked to us with respect, and they supported us and explained to sir. The rest couldn’t say anything because they weren’t on the jury.

Anyway, that one sir argued with us about one project for a whole hour, and we understood that they liked the project — that’s why they were spending so much time on it. They just had an issue that it had fewer features and could be made quickly, and the FYP lasts for a year, so what will we do for the rest of the time? Although it’s not like that, there’s a difference between someone with 8 to 10 years of experience and a student. They were speaking from their perspective, and from our perspective, the project is quite big. Then they said, "I won’t accept it like this. Add features to it and then bring it back. Only then will it be approved."

We came back, sat there, found features, and added them. When we took the proposal back, they had left. Only one teacher was there, who is good and doesn’t create issues. We showed them, and they said, "Okay, now just add one more thing and get it signed on Monday." So today we went to them, they asked us 2-3 questions, and then signed the approved proposal, and we submitted it further. We were so happy, we thanked Allah. Now meetings will start, and life will get even tougher, but we believe in ourselves that we will do it, in sha Allah.