How sad is it that my first day of college, in offline mode, is also one of the final days of my college life? That students of this generation have spent more than one-and-a-half years staring at screens from closed spaces.
Nevertheless, I consider myself lucky: at least I enjoyed two-and-a-half years of my under-graduation in a real classroom, before COVID wreaked havoc on the world, before we began to live our lives online, from March 2020. I finished my third year at Ethiraj College online, and then joined the University of Madras for a two year post-graduation in November 2020. After 10 months of studying at the University of Madras, last week, I finally walked through its doors.
September 1 will be cherished by many students, as ‘the’ day we got to finally step into college after spending an academic year entirely online. I entered my post-graduate classroom with mixed emotions. There were traces of uncertainty but the excitement to meet my friends, whom I had only connected with virtually till now, surpassed the doubt and nervousness. Social distancing was not a problem, since the classroom is huge and only 50% of the class strength is present for offline classes, set to be held on alternate days. The rest have chosen to continue learning online.
The room bustled with greetings, gossip and laughter. I walked in seeing a familiar face (despite the mask) and yelled out, “Atul”. I expected Atul Ignatius David’s eyes to light up with equal joy in response, but he seemed confused. It took him a minute to realise that it was me.
“You’re tall. I’ve always assumed that you’d be short,” exclaimed Shermin Oviya Jegath, another surprised classmate. I too had assumptions about my classmates, made over a year of corresponding via Zoom and WhatsApp, only to have them shattered the moment we met. Rasmi M, who always looked serious on screen, turned out to be funnier than the rest of us.
Despite the awkwardness of having just met, we managed to connect. Informal online meets back in our first year had ensured that we didn’t ‘disconnect’ after class like our modems, making this easier.
A sight we never get to see online, that gave me goosebumps, is when our professors walked into the classroom together. Four hours a day of virtual class did not give us much of a chance to engage with professors. The six offline lectures so far have been a completely different experience. We do not have to go running to answer the doorbell, and there are no Internet glitches to worry about.
Small joys
During virtual classes, we had missed the little connections: passing chits during lectures, or making eye contact with a classmate till they giggle. These memories were finally created on our first day.
Until I got home, I did not realise that I hadn’t used my mobile for almost five hours. Locked in our homes, the only entertainment most of us had were binge-able webseries and social media. My eyes would tear up, just to remind me that I have been staring at the screen for hours.
Many of my classmates travel for almost an hour to reach college before classes start at 10 am, since most of us live in different corners of the city. I was surprised to see many students from other districts and states in class: They somehow managed to arrange university hostels and private hostels within a week’s notice, despite being given the choice to continue online.
Given the possibility of a third wave, I am unsure about how long offline lectures will continue. Since we do not know how much time we will get together, we are going all out to create memories as quickly as we can.
