As the second semester of the academic year nears its conclusion, I see familiar scenes that bring back memories of when we were students at this time of the year. We also referred to these days as "hell week," what with practically all the examinations being scheduled one after the other on successive days, or if you're unlucky, on the same day. It was difficult enough to study 15 to 20 years ago. I remember we had our own distractions then but it was not about Facebook or Twitter or others that seem to take much of one's time these days. One was chess and we were engrossed in playing the sport that sometimes we just had to finish a game such that we were late for some of our lectures. One time, one of our professors passed us by while heading to our classroom and joked about us becoming grandmasters instead of civil engineers.
Back in the day, we would be having study groups and had our choice of places where we could gather and help each other prepare for our exams. We didn't have notebook computers at our disposal then, unlike many students these days. If we needed to use a computer, we had few choices like renting one at the Computer Center or taking turns using the two computers at the Civil Engineering Department. One computer was an IBM and probably a first generation laptop. It was actually the size of a conventional desktop CPU unit these days but back then it was referred to as a portable computer. The more affluent among us students had their own personal computers back in their homes and would seldom mingle with us, assuming they had the advantage of having their own computers. Of course, some of them would eventually come to realize that it is not the computer but the user who mattered most. And machine problems are not solved by computers but by the programmer, the person in front of the screen typing code into the computer.
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