What Happened to My Utopia?

by: Karwan Gaznay

Before coming to the academic program, I pictured the academy and its classes as my stunning utopia. I draw a picture of it in my mind that I will get into this dreamland someday.  Before coming to the academic program, I wished that one day see myself as one of these academic students who were walking and chatting around. Also, I thought that one day I will have the opportunity of having brilliant and sophisticated professors who seemed occupied in the camps. 

But,,,,,

When I became an academic student, I got a different perspective “ruthless,” not because academy is debauched, but because of some of the “thoughtless students” and some of the “unsympathetic teachers.”  Now, I have become vey paranoid and incredulous about the academic program! Is it the same utopia that I dreamed about? Are these “students” the same whom I fantasized to be? Are these “teachers” the same whom I tough so fantastically and zealously?                      

There are many things are getting worse, unfortunately, in the academic program in the American university of Iraq-Sulaimani:

There are some students who are decent “writers” to copy homework from their friends.  Closer to hand, a friend of mine said, “In our math class, just one of us does homework, and others just copy, which is easy and takes only “10” minutes.” Who is responsible for that, teachers or students?

Surprisingly, there are some others who even don’t write their assignments alone, so they write a writing assignment as a group!! Whose fault is that?

There are some others who bravely say “studying for exams is just wasting of time because my X friend will tell me the whole answers tomorrow during the exam, so why should I study?” who does undertake this issue?

There are some teachers, who don’t know their students’ names so far after eight weeks, and they don’t care who attends to classes and who is not, so the rule of being kicking out after having five absences per semester doesn’t work like this at all!

Clearer, a friend of mine was told by his teacher “if you are not my student pleas get out because we have a class.” Whose fault is that?

Plus, there are some students who will not go to their classes, but their “loyal” friends assign for them; I am wondering that no one knows that, or none says whatsoever? Who is responsible for that?

In some of the classes there is a huge swarming in the back of the class, so there are different arguments. Some people talk about their own “interesting topics in the back,” “some fall into sleep,” “some pay heed very well,” and “some are not in the class at all brainily.” Who is responsible for that, teachers or students?

There are some teachers who just talk to themselves, so they don’t care what is going on in the class, and what the students are saying! Also, they don’t care about students thoughts liberally, so I think that they have forgetting the term of “liberal art.” Who is in charge of this?

There are some teachers who give assignments and stuck on for the half of a semester. Whose fault is that, insensitive teachers, or uncaring students?

There are some students who don’t by books because they don’t need them, so the books are “useless,” to them. Whose fault is that?

There are some students who speak in classes to be counted as participation, but there illustrations are absolutely out of topic! Who is responsible for that, teachers or students?

There are some teachers who accept “stuff” from their lovely students, and bestow grades instead. Whose fault is that?

There are some “kind” teachers who give take home exams to be nice to their students, and students for the sake of obtaining high grades copy their answers.

Evidently, in of the exams in this semester, 15 students were seen “answered” a taken home exam together, and hopefully, almost all of them got A- or A. Who is responsible for that, teachers or students?

Astonishingly, there are some students who don’t know in which chapter they are in one of the IT classes.

A student said “we don’t know in which chapter we are, and when the teacher speaks, we pretend that we understand him by nodding our heads!”  Whose fault is that?

There are some students who are fluent in Kurdish and Arabic, but they still practice their mother languages, Kurdish and Arabic, instead English in some of their classes! Who is responsible for that, teachers or students?

Who is responsible for all of these faults, brainy “students” or bright ‘teachers”? Plus, who is responsible to fix these hazardous problems? NEVER is too late; and having these problems is dangerous, but ignoring them is a huge disaster!!