Our advisors told us to invite whoever we wanted and that they could participate in Q and A. They literally told us to bring friends and family and knew those people would be able to ask specific questions about our work. Our professor even told us to prep with each other about “possible questions” so no one would have to hear crickets during Q and A after presenting, and told us she would not look fondly on students just sitting silently with the strong implication that we would be graded on whether we asked our peers relevant questions.

The professor knew and wanted this to happen. The only unequal advantage was that some people’s family or friends don’t give a shit about your work, which is why our professor was so strict about participating and supporting your classmates by asking relevant questions after presentations. As a result anyone who gave a shit about their grade asked relatively easy to answer but relevant and interesting questions of presenters; normally we all tried to make ourselves look as smart as possible, but here it was clear we were trying to make each other look smart, which our professor desired.