BRACU: From excellence to exhaustion

Brac University; one of the leading universities in Bangladesh, has some unresolved issues. And those are growing worse gradually. 

        The amount of pressure it puts on its students is back-breaking, to say the least. And if you take 4 courses while you're a fresher, eyes full of dreams & hopes; your life becomes a small piece of hell, to put it simply.

There's 2 labs every week, usually. And there's at least 2 quizes, 1 assignment, class tasks etc every week. Not to mention the hurdle one has to face while commuting to the university.

I get that BracU wants its' students to do well in the exams & all; being that most of its students struggle with the concept of studying itself. But, putting a tremendous pressure on them isn't going to make them more attentive & study more. If anything; most will get off-put, get frustrated about the quizes they're not doing well on, will fail to submit their assignments on time & in the worst case, they will stop joining the classes when they're on their lowest points.

Things tend to get downhill from there.

They will hold off self-studying, delay doing their due assignments & immerse into anything they find pleasurable, escaping reality in the process. They will get irritated easily, lash out if someone tries to help them or shut themselves off from their friends & family. Their mental health takes a toll, self- esteem hits rock bottom while they blame themselves for everything & anything.

BracU has a vast number of problem children, unsurprisingly.In Bangladesh, people tend to see the private universities, to put it mildy, in a negative light. A lot of the students ended up here after they got rejected by the public universities, including me. It was either a private university or not pursuing a higher education. As for why they didn't get a chance in public universities; it almost entirely can be summed up in a category, "Study related Issues".

 Some didn't study properly in their school days, some didn't simply have the best teachers to guide them and some didn't have a proper study environment at home. Bullying, substance abuse, trauma along with other serious issues are also behind a lot of the students' poor academic skills.

BracU is the last chance they have in proving their worth; to others, the society and to themselves.

And when you put that much pressure on someone who's trying to take a step; they are gonna crumble. 

I am not saying that the university is bad, the authorities itself has bad intentions. Nor am I saying that the students shouldn't face any sort of academic hurdles. It's an university, after all. Only when its students manage to overcome difficulties & concur them, they will have the chance to grow. But not like this. 

The difficulty level is just too amped up.

As for what BracU should do & enforce instead, thats where my thought process falls apart. I dont have enough expertise in teaching, nor too 

well-versed in the area of academic policies. Any & all solutions I can think will come of as impractical & illogical.

But I can say one thing for certainty. As the things currently stands; not a great number of students can put up with the pressure and shine within it. While These students develop a higher tolerance against stress & keep their cool under it; The rest of the bunch struggles to keep up. Discarding the majority while a selected number of people succeed with flying colors isn't a viable strategy, thats my opinion.

  

 

     When the time comes where the  institution manages to create a curriculum where each & every student gets a fair chance at improving themselves & be able to smile freely; that will be the era where Brac University will shine the brightest & find a place as one of the best universities in the Bangladesh.