To cancel or not to cancel

 The exam cancellation conundrum written from the perspective of a staunch exam hater. This was written as a challenge and does not represent my view on the topic. Enjoy!

On  8th June 2021, Manipal Institute of Technology finally cancelled the End Semester exams for this semester. This led to the subsequent cancellation of exams for almost all affiliated colleges, barring of course the medical and health sciences related colleges. Who wants to consult a doctor who didn’t give their exams? Jeez.

To give a bit of context, MIT thought it would be a great idea to call almost the entire strength of the institute back to campus in February. This was done so that students could complete their odd sem exams and labs in the offline mode, the way God intended it to be. The only flaw in this seemingly brilliant plan was that they felt that the thrill of coming back to campus would be enough to coax students, aged 18-22, to follow all Covid related precautions to the ‘T’. Yeah, right.

So eventually, just about a month after calling everybody to campus including overly excited freshers, there was a Covid outbreak on campus (surprise, surprise) 

And on the ides of march (not exactly, but close enough), the campus was declared as a containment zone restricting the movement of students to their hostels. The chaos that ensued after is a story in itself, but maybe later. The administration's response was as usual one of feigned surprise,‘Damn, who would’ve guessed a covid outbreak in a full campus with bare minimum precautions’.

At this moment, yours truly, safe inside the confines of home sweet home, felt like the soothsayer in ancient Rome advising Caesar about the Ides of March. I told you so MIT.

So this is how we ended up at home for yet another semester of MS Teams lectures, tons of assignments and no peace of mind. After having attended the previous sem entirely online, we students kinda had an idea about how it was gonna be. But a couple of things were different this time. Since UGC rules compelled them to, the admin had provided an online option for the odd sem endsems, the schedule of which was rendered useless due to the sudden outbreak of cases (which eventually turned out to be a precursor to the deadly second wave). This meant we had students who hadn’t even cleared their 3rd sem already sitting for 4th sem classes. Yikes. 

Oh, but I forgot to mention that even semester classes had already begun in January to make up for the lost time. And yes, the other change was that this time the admin decided it would be best to conduct the labs online and rightly so. After the faux pas they committed last time around by calling us to campus, they were hardly left with any choice. So finally, with two weeks of classes already backlogged, a raging pandemic and with the universal students' pep talk (‘Ye sem pakka phodenge’) at our lips, we were ready to conquer (meh) yet another semester!

   Online sems are anything but a smooth ride. Sleep inducing lectures, anxiety-inducing deadlines and an endless barrage of exams for 4 straight months is the official definition of an online sem. Obviously, since we’re at home, we must be free for 24 hours, that goes without saying. That's why the admin decided to prepare a round the clock schedule. Classes at 8 in the morning, then labs at 1 and then finally to top it all off evaluations at 6 pm. Brilliant. I wonder who came up with that schedule. Oh, but I digress. The point is this schedule was never going to be sustainable but still, we went on, without a complaint should I mention, completing lab reports and evaluations and assignments. All this while several students suffered the devastating effects of the pandemic. Some students even lost some of their loved ones to the pandemic and with an acute shortage of vaccines it had become a race against time to get vaccinated. It all reached a tipping point when finally our End Semester schedule was announced. How dare they announce the schedule for an exam we all knew was coming but still secretly hoped would never happen. The audacity, I tell you. Exacerbating the situation was the fact that we barely had any time to study. A mere three weeks before the scheduled start of the ‘Main Event’ of the semester, the schedule is released and that too while our In-semester exams are going on as if things weren't already bad enough. This also coincided with the announcement of the 3rd sem results (3 months belated, and please, don't ask). Well done, MIT. Naturally, the best course of action was to launch an unmitigated digital protest on the platform which has previously served as an ally. Twitter, of course. 

         And so began the herculean task of getting the college to cancel our endsems. This effort was in many ways reminiscent of last year where a consolidated student-led Twitter campaign led to the cancellation of our exams. It started as a desperate plea to hear the woes of the students which morphed into a full-fledged campaign filled with witty hashtags like #TrauMIT. Slowly the campaign picked up pace and really started gaining attention. Somehow these students managed to get media houses’ attention and reached the doors of the NSUI. Damn, political involvement. And I wonder why these students worry about getting jobs. If this campaign is anything to go by, digital marketing companies must be licking their lips thinking about hiring these guys. Honestly, the ruling party’s IT cell would be proud.

    After 3 solid weeks of tweeting and whining about our situation, finally, we had done it. There it was. The gleaming circular had arrived. We had managed to convince or force them into cancelling the endsems. There was a lot written on it, but all I read was ‘ Yes, you guys won. We surrender’. The joy I felt at that moment is unexplainable. The fact that just 3 days before this we felt we had lost all hopes of cancelling the exams made it all the more special.

  Now, the list of colleges to cancel exams were: Some IIT’s, BITS and MIT. We were in elite company. So naturally, our friendly neighbourhood competitors, our nemesis, VIT Vellore thought they would wiggle their way in. Blatantly copying all the things we did to the extent of changing just a single alphabet from our hashtags, they began their very own quest for greatness. As expected, their efforts were thwarted before they could even say #EnoughVit. Hilarious. 

This settles the VIT vs MIT debate once and for all. Take that VIT.

  By the end of all this, you would hope that further on educational institutes would take students as serious stakeholders in decision making. Though the chances of this are low our hopes are always high. In any case, if they still take us lightly, I think at the end when we achieve victory once again I would be too tired to say I told you so MIT, so instead  I will say, I informed you thusly.