The holiday confusion on first mid term

First there is news that there is a holiday then there is news that the govt took back the decision then follows uncertainity on what will be IBA’s decision.

This has happened before and will continually happen in the future unless the University comes up with a solution to address the problem. I would suggest that IBA has a website it is not at all being used to any potential. The news that should be up there should also concern such events and IBA’s decision.

Another suggestion would be to use the live ID’s that have been given to the students. To email them regarding the decision.

Another suggestion could be to have a partnership with either Ammana or Chopaal and have student registration and to use their network to send out messages to the existing students.

There should be some authentic source which can let the students know, cause frankly speaking this CR calling up concerned parties or the GS calling up people to find out whats going on and then telling it to ppl and to forward the message is becoming archaic. Needs to remodelled.

The record for the fastest paper

This mid-term Amir Rizvi is the proud holder for hosting the fastest paper first. He occupies the first with two entries namely Supply Chain Management and Customer Relationship Management, both MIS electives. the papers reported ended on average within fifteen minutes, with a few outliers here and there.

The second place goes to Ahmed Ali Shah for Calculus, whose paper reportedly finished in half an hour, with the tinkering and checking taking max time to an hour.

Congratulations to both! We are very proud of you

MIDS FEEL LIKE FINALS

mids always seem like finals because they stretch too long and you have to study so much for them.

i still feel its worse off for students. they miss out on the chance they have for keeping their GPA up.

i mean i heard three students missed out on their paper because they had a timetable mix up.  there is no back up for such mistakes. i know it seems fair, that the students should have known atleast their papers but sometimes things happen

MIDTERMS AFTERMATH

What happened after both the mid terms ended?

I was flooded with six submissions for six courses. It was hectic. i was not studying. i was making one project after another, co-ordinating with no less than eight people for four projects. and heading two projects on my own and giving four presentations. and the month just went by in a flurry. i didnt manage to study anything that was being taught. and believe me not much was taught.

and the last submission was four days before the finals start. and the finals..

The medical clause for the mid terms

There seems to be a medical clause that has been ever so carefully left out of the students’ and well for quite some time the administration’s notice . it goes something like, in case the student is really sick (eg jaundice or some other severe illness) during the any of the mid-terms he or she may retake the midterm if he or she can prove it during the midterms, meaning i guess a doctor’s certificate or something . The process of retaking of the mid term is a bit hazy.

[this is purely my understanding of two situations involving jaundice patients took place]

so a relief, in case you fall sick enough not to be able to give the midterm.

I dont believe there is such policy on getting sick during the final

MIDTERM AND TERM PROJECT DILEMA

With the second midterm ending we saw a huge list of term projects due within one month.

Six term projects, each due within five days of the next. Presentations, reports, submissions. and if you catch the currently running virus, life’s just dandy for you. and to top it off if you were so macho to think that you could do a term project alone where as the rest of the class decided to work in groups, we ll just call you plain dumb, stupid, idiot, jackass. cause well you did something like that.

anyways. i’d midterms crammed stuff up a lot.

so  the month after the midterms, which we treated so much like the second hourly, rushes by like anything and you realize you almost reached the finals. how the hell are we going to give a cumulative course final when we haven’t even touched a word since the midterm and have certainly forgotten everything before that.

food for thought…

2nd midterm

how can you have two mid-terms.

how can there be two middle of anything.

like seriously , who thinks up these names…. oh yea the administration .

pretty stressful again. and still they seem ultra long, stretched beyond requirement. and i believe we didnt really study much in between the two mid-terms.

OF TWO MIDDLES AND THREE HOURS

The Background:

A long, long time ago, there used to be three hourlies, and the favorite slogan of the students was “N-1”. No bliss could be compared to that which was felt when you said I don’t need to give a third hourly, cause I scored perfect in the first two nor could you replace the sense of relief which was felt when you knew you had failed the hourly, even though you studied the whole night but the teacher thought of giving something that wasn’t in the course or worse, they gave a paper that was longer than one hour. And we thanked God, that we have another chance. Or even if we didn’t do stupid mistakes in our papers, or if the teachers were considerate enough to care for the learning of students rather than the grading curve, there was not a lot of tension to perform in the hourlies (unless it was the third hourly, and you didn’t perform well in the prev. ones, and couldn’t drop another course).

In comes, out of nowhere, out of the blue, unexpectedly, surprisingly, shockingly and what not-ly, the mids.

“..the academic board has taken the decision that instead of  three hourlies, two mid terms will be held.” (no reason stated in the notice)

The Reaction:

Taken aback by an academic board (students didn’t even know an academic board existed, nor who are the members of the board) were the students, a population of more than 1600 individuals, then the teachers were stunned. Some wondered about the poor students, the rest just looked at the fact that they’ll have to check lesser papers this time. goody. The administration, those who implemented felt it would be less hassle to administer two papers rather than three. So the suffering victims are the poor students, whom no one ever thinks about.

What a Good or What a Bad?

Are the mid-terms good? We just gave the first mid-terms. I’d say they put me through more tension than finals, they dragged on for ever, and they were the worst scheduled exams I ever gave. The mid-terms are supposed to go over a period of six days. Yet, I gave half of my mid-terms in 24 hours.(i.e. I gave three papers in 24 hours) screwed the last one cause by the time I sat down to give the paper, my mind was exhausted because of the tension, the strain, and the amount of learning crammed into a space of mere 24 hours. The next paper took place the next day, then a gap of two days and the last two papers.

Their Reasons:

The administration’s reasons for shifting to two mid-terms was a fake poll they claim to have done, where in they realized that students were not taking one of the hourlies seriously, so they shifted to this. I ask, what about those students who were? If one out of forty students feels that he/she can take one hourly lightly, does that mean the others shall be made to go through the same, of being forced to give two instead of three exams.

There were a lot of students than could be accommodated in the way the hourlies were managed. So instead of developing the infrastructure, they changed the hourly system.

And the Three Wise Men Say:

It’s wise to move away from collecting the test of students’ mettle in one attempt, if it’s diversified and it shows consistency, it’s a better measure of the students’ learning than lesser number of attempts at finding out what they are worth. Wise, also in the sense, that if anyone gets sick during any paper, they will have a chance to make up for circumstances that are beyond their control.

Change Management:

Even if it was good, in some odd sense, the way it was implemented was so harsh, forced upon, that it automatically caused the students to reject the change. Although they didn’t have a choice, but if they did, they certainly would have opted against it.

While managing change, where it affects people, to ensure successful change, a willingness to change must be created among the people. They must be involved in the change process. People must be made aware of the change before it takes place, to let them be more prepared. Their fears and concerns must be taken into account and addressed to counter potential resistance. None of this was visible. Their method of change management is to put a notice telling people that it is so from now on.

Talk about not doing what you teach.

More Oddity:

On the weird fact that the mid-terms don’t actually take place in the middle of the term, rather on the sides of the middle month of the term, I reserve my comments. The administration couldn’t come up with a new name.

Predictions:

I predict that the overall average GPA of students for a semester with mid-terms in it will be lower than of a semester which had three hourlies. A simple query run on the CMS will support that. Students would learn less, since they would actually sit down and study three times a semester instead of the four times they did previously. They would feel a lot of time wasted during the midterms because of the weird scheduling. Students who are doing more than just studying will face a lot of trouble.

Last Word:

Hourlies were among the better traditions in Institute of Business Administration. They murdered it.