On Wednesday, when colleges reopen it will be a unique experience for second-year students. Though they have actually completed a whole year, most of them are yet to experience college life on campus.
Lalitha Balakrishnan, principal of MOP Vaishnav College said last year’s freshers came to college only to collect their admit cards. “Our teachers know the students in their department and I know the monitors. But we have met only online, not face to face,” she said.
“I want to go to college in person. It will be so good,” said Madhumita, a second-year student.
Teachers say the students would have to be viewed as freshers as they have hardly spent time on campus to understand the nuances of college life. “We have to treat them as freshers. We have to ask the students to introduce themselves, as they would in the first year,” said T. Veeramani, general secretary of Tamil Nadu Government College Teachers Association.
In some colleges, students went only for a few days, while in some semi-urban areas students had attended a fortnight of classes.
P. Poorni, a student of DRBCC Hindu College, said the college segregated them in batches and she went to college for a month. “Half of us went to college while the other half was studying from home,” she said. After the first day when all students attended college, the students have been mostly depending on online classes, she said. She has taken one dose of the vaccine and is awaiting information from the college about reopening.
S. Lakshman Sathya, also from the same college but from a different shift recalled that he had attended college for just 10 days. “I know my teachers from the first year but not the second year.”
Computer science and engineering student of Saveetha Engineering College P. Kamesh Kumar regretted that there was no party to welcome the freshers. “My senior batch students had a welcome party. We have missed out on college life,” he said.
