Recently, vertos were given “news” (don’t know any non-contradictory adjective for this!). This news was about the end term examination of the 2019-20 Spring Term. The announcement was uploaded on 29th May 2020. Subsequently, the news spread so did complaints of vertos, just like COVID-19. Most of us didn’t wait for further guidelines and started putting RMS. Well, some had a good immune system and they didn’t.
Even my batchmates argued on putting an RMS and a few of them did. Just 4-5 of us were there who asked them to wait for further information first. But the majority mostly wins and we 5 Pandavas lost! I asked them a simple question then, “What will you write in RMS?” I got two replies. Well, at first only one. When I responded to that, the other one followed. Those two replies were, “to postpone the exams” and “not to conduct the exams in online mode”. My reply was similar for both.
- University has provided the option to give exams after it opens (August, for now). Go for this and exams already postponed!
- University has simply given everyone a choice. We can either choose online exams or offline when the university reopens. So, no need for complaining about the online conduct of exams.
Then came the actual issue, “we don’t want exams.” We’ll come there later.
But the RMS was really too quick to take any action by us, the students. It was because, within 3 hours of the primary announcement, another one came. It clearly mentioned that half of the syllabus will come, and we won’t be having ETE for each course code. Still, we didn’t stop. We started a brand-new hashtag #ExamsAtLPU and made it ‘trending’ in a day. Woah! We really are vertos, the transformers! 11K tweets in 18 hours against the exams, we sure do love our management!
The online petitions preceded the tweets. We still had 17 days for the exams. But we don’t believe in delaying. So, rather than waiting for the complete guidelines, we did everything in our power to postpone/cancel the exams. Was that right?
Now coming to, “we don’t want exams”, which I left before. To be honest, I don’t either and who does? But having no exam at all isn’t fair to everyone. Some of us might even have missed our CAs and MTEs too, whatever may be the reason. Now, we are getting the opportunity to improve. If it went wrong, we’ll have another chance, offline exams for improvement (no extra fee). It is also mentioned that questions will be framed keeping in mind we studied online. So, just 2-4 exams out of 6-8, what’s so wrong in it?
Now, if you are saying exam pressure during this SCARY pandemic, that is no valid reason. Hardly anyone of us is really scared of it. Most of us are making memes on COVID-19 or laughing at them. Isn’t it scary at that time? And the pressure is not just for us, the precious students. Faculties and management too, are getting out of their comfort zone for this.
Let’s consider and then decide if the stress is just on us:
| VERTOS | MANAGEMENT | FACULTIES |
| · The stress of gathering notes (though we mostly have study material provided by the faculties).
· The pressure of studying. · Tensed about the internet amid exam (though we can go for free improvement exam). |
· Concerned as they can’t take exams of all in a day or two. Not even in a fortnight as it might cause heavy trafficking on the website.
· Tensed that server doesn’t stop in between. · Students don’t say they didn’t get the fair shot (maybe due to some genuine reasons they weren’t able to perform well previously). |
· Framing the questions keeping in mind they were taught online.
· Checking the answers in various handwritings. (they do that before but not via images of the answer sheets that can be blur.) · If students don’t perform well, the blame goes on them that they didn’t teach well during online classes. |
Look, everyone wants to sit free at home and have fun with their family. We want that, our management team and faculties, too, want the same. If they are concerned about us and giving up their time for us, can’t we? And what for? Ourselves only. So, think before taking any other action.
I wish everyone the best of luck. I hope everything goes well and no issue comes during the online exam.
