College pressures

Recently there were 2 suicide cases in NTU that occured within days apart from each other. Both were from the dept of EE . Obviously, it was a field day for the media. Infact, they got so excited over the item that they fabricated fantastic stories form the scraps of info the university cudnt manage to supress. Nevertheless, the underlying fact that alarmed the people was the killer stress level among the university students today. Though the situation may seem quite exagerrated to warrant suicide, the pressure can seriously cripple the students to some extent. My own college is a champion in supplying such treatment.

One such method of unjustifiable torture today is the threat of accomodation. You see, there are about 33000+ students studying here. OF which over 12000+ are international students. THe hostels in the campus can accomodate around 8000 students only. No one knows why the management doesnt take any measure to construct more hostels or what they do with our exorbitant fee. So, in their typical problem solving way, how do they manage the situation ?its simple. each undergraduate student has to do some CCAs where the are given points. SO, at the year end, all the students bid for the available hostels with these points and the ones having more than the cut off points are kept in , the rest are booted out.
this mock contest nicely places the fault on the students for not securing enouf points to win their hostel instead of the management having to look bad for not having enough accomodation. And so, every year this intense fight to have a roof over our head begins and the students flock to do any stupid activity in the name of cca to scrap the points. THe story of these CCAs are more interesting. Though some of them are quite useful and meaningful, the amount of work extracted from each club through the entire year can rival the study schedule put out by the university.

One can call the situation a healthy one, exposing the students to academics as well as extra curricular giving an overall balence blah blah blah crap. It would have been so,if this game isnt dirty; if the university could resist bullying the students a little more. Last year the so called cut off was increased dramatically without any clue. NOTE 1 : the cut off points are released only after all the cca points are finalised at the year end and so, if u are unfortunate to fall below the mark, its just bad luck.Note 2: some clubs emulate indian politics very well-promise great amt of points, get all the work done,forget abt the deal. note 3: The situation gets worse each year, with the hostel fee hike and the competition evn more maddening.
This mad scramble takes the joy out of the entire scheme of ccas. People are forced to perform the most stupidest,atrocious activities and some arts clubs go far enough to bully the members to buy tickets for their mediocre shows. At the end of the day, it just sucks.

With this added pressure of doing time-consuming work after a tiring day,cope up with academics and when finally booted out without a second thought of one's financial situation by the management into the SG streets,not many poeple 'd be sane enough to avoid the depression black hole . How can the university expect the students to ace the exams when they cannot even guarantee them the basic facilities of life? Well, we are taught one true lesson well form an early age.. "when the going gets tough, the tough get going".