It all started last Friday, when friends sent me links to the news. The news said that a decision had been made to close universities for three weeks for quarantine.
I immediately wanted to get
Yesterday the dean of the Faculty of CE Vladimir Ivanovich Khakhanov called me, and we did finally post this announcement on the faculty website: classes are suspended until November 23, 2009.
So what should a student do with himself for these three weeks? Obviously, the classes for this period will have to be made up. Labs will have to be done, term papers and reports handed in, the exams will cover all 120% of the questions, and there won’t be any slack. There are two possible ways things can develop: a) compressing the class schedule so that students study from 7:45 to 21:45; or, more likely: b) no winter break — you’ll pass your exams and the next semester will start immediately.
So the “what to do” list might look like this:
-
finish lab work on your own or do it ahead of time, to save time and close out the course early;
-
prepare reports, if any were assigned;
-
do the course projects — they usually take a lot of time; you can work on them from morning till night, and for once you won’t be distracted by trips to the university;
-
find books and independently prepare the material that you’re going to cover — that’s advanced-level stuff, but it’s worth trying.
If the homework is done, you can do other things: see friends and relatives, sort out household matters, take care of things around the house, learn a new programming language (or brush up on an old one), read that book that’s been sitting on the shelf for ages waiting its turn, make some quick little project with a friend.
In short: whatever you fill your time with is what you’ll get in the end. Good luck, and stay healthy!
P.S. Bonus track from Sasha Adamov: tips for disease prevention.