I study at a prestigious law school, and never, perhaps, is there a discipline more cold and pretentious than law. It professes to uphold the loftiest of virtues, but its practitioners can be corrupt with appalling ease.
I resent utterly the examination system to which this law school subscribes. I was accustomed to a system that was varied in its assessment pattern. A trimester was split into an ‘internal assessment’ of fifty marks which comprised of written assignments, viva-voce, and a written test; and the ‘external assessment’ which was a trimester-end exam, also of fifty marks. We were allowed to type out assignments. Those were halcyon days.
But there has been an unpardonable retrogression. Let alone the fact that any written submission for internal assessment in law school must necessarily be handwritten and never typed. The more scandalous aspect is that the internal assessment comprises of only twenty marks and the external assessment comprises of eighty marks. It would not have been a problem in and of itself had we not been required to practically write a booklet in three hours for the latter.
I am never able to muster the will to study. I have begun to loathe studying, even as I am able to enjoy some subjects in class. I am distracted by books on all sorts of other subjects: military history, cellular biology, and investigative journalism to list a few. Needless to say, it has begun to adversely impact my grades.
But the title of this post will unveil what is, perhaps, a more genuine reason behind my trenchant feelings: the fear of losing out in life. What I am perhaps feeling genuinely is that fear and not really frustration at the academic system. The latter is probably a mere coping mechanism. I know I must pull myself together and slog my guts out. And yet, I cannot bring myself to do it.
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