Reflections Of Life

Are rules meant to be broken???

Friday, August 12, 2005

I am thinking about the frequency with which I write about my exams! Even though it sounds cliché now, it just feels like I started, but finished two mid-term exams of Term-3 today – Corporate Finance and Operations Management. But I must say, the preparations have only become better (or must I say smarter) and the butterflies (!) before the exams have definitely disappeared. When the alums said, the enthusiasm levels of students comes down around term-3, I didn’t believe it, but I can see it within and around me now :-)

The following might sound philosophical for many… just my thoughts.
The argument of the campus last week had been about ‘PUNCTUALITY’! Yes, the future grads of one of the best B-schools of the country argued enough about penalties that should be imposed on students coming late to class. In term-1, I was genuinely surprised n happy about the whole class being on-time for all the classes and everyone attended all the classes. By term-3, 25% of the class comes late, especially 8.30 am classes and the absenteeism rates have gone up, especially before the exams! What we fail to realize is that we have paid for every minute of these invaluable lectures, we better make the best of it. (If anyone feels these are sunk costs, please don’t bother to mention the same to me) …respect for the professor and the fellow students is genuinely lacking. If someone cannot impose self-discipline in something as small as this, I wonder about the other capabilities.

Another thing that amazes me is the crowd that gathers together after exams to discuss answers and to crib n complain!... the usual dialogues follow “What is the answer to question 3, part e” … “The paper was so bad” … “I am going to get a B- or C in this paper”. (I can never stop wondering about this). I have no idea how these people can get together and find out what the answers are and what they are going to score and also decide what their grades are going to be! (That too when it is relative) Maybe all the people should help the TAs who struggle and take a hell a lot of time to evaluate our papers! In my opinion, one should worry about a paper before you write an exam and not after it. It is better to wait for the professor to put up the answers and check where one has gone wrong and try to improve. Making a mistake is not a mistake… The biggest mistake is only when one doesn’t learn from it.

Some immature actions that I have been observing for the past few months during exams and wonder if I am the only one who feels these actions are immature.
-Looking into neighbor’s paper
-Laughing and disturbing others during exams
-Murmuring about something obvious
-Writing after time in an exam
-Discussing in the rest-room in-between the exam
-Using the internet during the exam
-Keeping the mobile phone on during the exam
-Arguing about marks after re-evaluation has been finalized
… and much more which I cant remember now!
Maybe as I grow older, I would realize the necessities and reasons behind such acts because everyone who does these is much older than I am and I thought they were mature!

There comes one more news that I don’t know what to think!… Of the 21 questions in today’s Corporate Finance paper, 10-12 questions were picked from last year’s mid term paper. If a professor cannot even set a new question paper every year, even though his teaching might be great, my respect for the prof. has definitely reduced.

I think if everything happens right, the world might be a better place to live in, but might be a boring place to live in… maybe that’s why rules are taken as meant to be broken!

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