Everything irrelevant becomes interesting during exams. During my first year at IIM Rohtak, I found a way to materialise the same in the form of some online entries regarding situations during the mid-terms for the class of 2018. The following parts begin with the kind of music that played in Hostel corridors between exams. The paragraphs below depict the grave frustrations the batch during the first ever mid-term they faced.
Part 1
“Do you control the dreams?
There are two kinds of dreams - you control the ones in day and the ones in night control you!”
It is two hours to my first MBA mid-semester exam. Being a Kathor has a lot to do with the eight flames one is roasted upon in the first trimester. We have had classes till 6 and events and meetings till 11 pm until yesterday, most of us slept only for 3 hours last night and yet, the silence of this moment is deafening. Motivation (which of course, is of three types and you haven’t noticed) to outperform and beat the heat is momentous. Much of which is inspired by an intrinsic desire to add credentials to their name. It also seems sometimes that people value the credentials more than the idea- credentials are the difference in the effort between publishing a first book and second.
Hostel galleries are filled with people with few A4 sheets in their hands, presumably their notes or Photostat. Their expressions are deadpan, it seems they can’t feel anything, they are numb. They are numb. But still, they walk around with their eyes fixed on the scars on the paper. Someone’s one doubt, and all of them are alive again because it’s an opportunity to learn more. Distractions are there, a constant clamour in WhatsApp groups, temporarily interesting topics and youtube videos.
Part 2
“Everybody needs some time,
On their own,
Don't you know you need some time all alone…”
Life goes from Mozart to Eminem when you have to write an article in the two hours break in the middle of two exams. I am sitting under a shade at a customary stop between hostel and academic block, as the conversation spots of almost every college. Exams or whatever, this place is always alive during academic hours. Some groups haven't even cared to sit down, and few are sitting with their bags on the back. Almost all of them arguing about the Nutcracker in the last exam. Few chose to skip lunch in between, and a lot who plan to catch on their sleep during this time.
I just realised two mistakes I made in the portions with negative marking. It’s better to think about
Managerial Communication for now. Like the case of Spiderman, at IIM Rohtak, with the power of open book exams comes great responsibility. The responsibility to find out all the material you might need in the exam, lest you run out of places to look for answers. Most of us are attempting first such paper and hence, have no clue of how to go about it. It’s just one exam, and I want to be down to the paradise city.
Part 3
“You were caught in the crossfire of childhood and stardom,
Blown on the steel breeze,
Come on you target for faraway laughter,
Come on you stranger, you legend, you martyr, and shine!”
Tantalising is the word I would use to describe open book exam experience. We went in with all the notes and books, came out without opening them. The case pedagogy followed renders reasonable methods to learn uselessly. And conventional means to learn is what most of us were accustomed to. Survival Day 1 is half done with the end of two exams, the harder part to continue the intensity smiles right at us.
We used that time to catch up on our sleep. The most difficult choice is to decide which subject to study first. But it was soon apparent that the method of torture hardly makes any difference. Around 9 o’ clock, the hostel corridors remain empty as we rush to attend a session delivered by a classmate. It’s a non-mandatory, informal session with more than 60 people – the demand and supply curves have met under the constraint of time and pressure. There’s a lot to study, yet there are moments we forget all about that to slow down and talk as if we don’t care, but we do.
At 10 PM, Second floor, Academic Block
Part 4
“Silence, I realized is something you can actually hear.” ~ Murakami
Sticking to timings during exams is hard. The time of night when we sleep is increasing day by day. This space was silent yesterday to mark sorry for my legal aspects of the business exam.
Our plans to sleep a weekend after exams have already been ruined by mails. We are getting accustomed to this schedule so we can be sure there’s no relief in nearby future. Now that I have shown you the worst side, this article can only get better. I have almost exhausted my creativity after writing Marketing paper.
As usual, we slept in the evening and felt bad about it after meeting people who had finished a subject before dinner. The nights are getting longer day by day, and we are getting confident to finish subjects by just talking about them. All in all, the most talked about thing is the party tomorrow evening. Tomorrow has more pressure than any of us had during exams. Tomorrow is when we take a break to live amid raging storms.