Last Monday, I was sitting in the food court of a mall in Ithaca, New York on the verge of a panic attack. On the day of my first math exam, the router in my apartment completely stopped working. The testing window had already opened by the time I had discovered the issues with my internet. According to my class syllabus, I could request extensions if I reached out to the instructor prior to the exam.
Additionally, I had been planning to use the printer at my apartment to scan my work and submit it. But my printer operates through Wi-Fi, and I had to resort to a scanning app. Though the app worked at my apartment, it failed to scan at the mall. Even after stopping work on unfinished problems in an attempt to ensure my scanning endeavor would work out, I simply couldn’t get the technology to work with me.
The exam window closed, and I had not submitted a single page. Immediately, I assumed I would get a zero for an assignment worth 20% of my grade. A pit settled in my stomach, and I finally allowed my emotions to take over. I wouldn’t allow myself to cry in public, but I was ready to have a long, fulfilling sobbing session once we got home.
Luckily though, my instructors understood. I emailed them immediately with photos of my work and an explanation of the situation in an effort to earn at least partial credit. They accepted my work and saved me from a complete meltdown. But the point still stands: I probably did far worse on my exam than I would have during a normal year in a normal testing environment. Every single facet of life and education has been changed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, and testing is no different. I am, like all of us, still adapting to an entirely online education, and I don’t know anyone who has had a completely smooth experience thus far.
While adjustments have been made to course schedules, housing arrangements, fees and other areas university wide, testing policies have more or less been made the responsibility of each individual instructor and each individual syllabus. Of course, each class is different. A math class requires scanning of work, an English class requires the submission of an essay and so on. But with every student now taking classes and exams remotely, it only makes sense for the University to create some guidelines in the event of a technological issue or an extenuating circumstance.
Tests and exams are often the assignments that account for the majority of a grade in a class, and thus, the rules surrounding them are often the most stringent. The university wide testing and examination policies have not been changed since 2011, when we were still nine years away from the start of the pandemic. Times have changed, and the University has not accounted for those changes. Individual instructors have certainly put some precautions in place for circumstances which could make testing difficult because of COVID-19, but relegating such adjustments to individual professors can massively impact student grades on a case-by-case basis. A student performing exactly the same could have wildly different grades based on the instruction.
During such a difficult time, students deserve leniency. Operating under the rules which applied during a normal year is irresponsible and unfair. Currently, most students are not asking for exceptions because they are underperforming academically, they are simply trying to get by. As much as we would all like to be able to control our situations right now, bad things will happen. Wi-Fi routers will die, transportation will fall through and online testing will prove to be a challenge.
While adapting to life’s problems is an important skill to gain while growing up, individual determination simply fails sometimes. The University needs to update their testing and examination policies to reflect the current global climate and provide students the room for human or technological error without penalty. Anything else would simply add insult to injury.
