ESSTST: Exams « Canceled-until-further notice »

Let us set the time and place, place: The Higher School of Health Sciences and Techniques of Tunis (also known as ESSTST), Time: The morning of the first day on finals’ week, another term for the climax of two weeks of continuous stress, all-nighters, and frustration. Yet here we were, waiting in front of our assigned classes, cramming 17 courses’ worth in a mere 10 minutes, full of nervous energy and uncalled-for excitement. Minutes were passing quickly. At the time, we thought it was a blessing. Every minute of lateness on behalf of our proctors was an extra minute of last-minute cramming for us. But minutes kept on passing, and soon it was 8:30. The whispers started going around like wildfire: “I think the teachers are on a strike?”; “What? Since when? Why’d no one bother to tell us?”; “Someone said we won’t be sitting for any exams today”

And panic erupts.

Let me tell you something, spending days on end, not going out, not feeling fresh air on your face to the point of missing the sun, driving yourself to the point of sickness, all for the sake of getting good grades, is a thing most of us are guilty of. It comes with the major. And seeing all of that effort carelessly stepped on by the “authorities” can make you so mad, so desperate, so helpless, and it’s not a nice feeling.

We weren’t told much of anything, other than the fact that there won’t be any exams today (and probably the next few days) that we should go home and study for tomorrow’s exam, that our proctors were on strike and were refusing to do their duty of overseeing our exams, and that we will be contacted later if anything comes up, until then, stay home and study.

Now, this might make some people say “But you got some extra days of studying! So, what’s the problem? Some of us wish for that!” Let me tell you what’s the problem; Our third years have final projects that we hand out mid-March to the beginning of April, and they take a lot of work, effort, and on-site observations that are done in hospitals after the exams. So, this whole “canceled-until-further notice” situation was the last thing we needed. That and the fact that late exams benefit absolutely no one, but least of all the ever-ignored students.

That evening, our over-hardworking school delegates, who were torn trying to fit all ends and making sense of the situation, informed us of the inevitable: No exams on Friday and Saturday either. Everything will be postponed until next week. But nothing is for sure. So, we should stay home and study for our hypothetical exams. You know, just put your whole life on hold and keep studying for an exam you don’t know when you’ll be taking, because that’s just the way this works, we were powerless..

We were stuck between a rock and a hard place. On one end, there was the school administration who allegedly knew about the strike and didn’t inform the delegates, and who insists that they had a plan B consisting of letting its own workers be our proctors instead of the teachers. And on the other end, there was the strike planner: the syndicate of PMPs (Paramedical Professors) who claims that having administration workers supervise us is illegal, that it’s illegal for them to inform us of the strike, and that their demands are legitimate and worth this whole fuss. We were being played like puppets, coming and going to the whims of people who claimed they only wanted our best but weren’t acting like it.

On Friday, nothing changed. A group of students went to the university. We demanded answers, dates, anything to cling to, the student body was getting frustrated, it was all fun and games on the first day, but this looked like it might take longer than we thought, and we weren’t ready for that. But of course, we received nothing. We still have nothing but a promise of an emergency meeting on Monday that might or might not hold our salvation.

And so we wait, until further notice.