Annus Horribilis: Trinity goes online, Isaac Newton returns home
An online semester. What a wonderful idea! All students sitting in the warm comfort of their houses; binging ‘lectures’ day in, day out; wrapped up in a blanket and sipping hot coffee as they do so; spending free-time doing recreational activities like scribbling down assignments, and enjoying the perks of what they call ‘college life’ portrayed in the infinite bounds of a 14-inch screen. If asked about academic heaven, wouldn’t we all agree that this would be it?
On one such fine online day, I came across a rather old piece of news. Did you know that our old friend Sir Isaac Newton too, had to spend a part of his college years away from campus? Back in his time, when the Great Plague of London hit, Trinity College shut down and sent its students home. Newton had to spend almost a year in near solitude during which he worked on Calculus, theories of gravitation, optics, and a hell lot of stuff.
But, alas! He could never enjoy the wonderful fruits of an online semester. Never will he be able to know what a productive environment this is. I wonder what it would be like if he still was a student like us…
With the surge of the pandemic, as academic institutions worldwide close down and students are being sent to their houses, a young scholar leaves Trinity College, Cambridge to head home to Woolsthorpe. All packed up, he waves goodbye to the campus, thinking as he does so, that this would be nothing more but a short vacation and he’ll return soon to continue his studies. Little does he know, that this short break is about to last for almost a year. A wonderful year, rather. Given the problem of education coming to a standstill, there arises an eminent solution: shifting academia to an online platform.
Newton starts off pretty well with the online lectures; waking up to the shining sun, sitting out on his farm (good internet connectivity, you see), browsing emails for meeting links, switching between platforms, downloading the recorded lectures, and similar routine chores (the new academic normal). Quite a productive day. A month or two into the semester, Newton hopes to find some free time for working on his theories. Bah! But who needs time off lecture videos and long-ass assignments? Even if time is found, he will have better things to accomplish. A long, calm sleep, for instance. What are the perks of staring at your laptop screen, you ask? The urge to close your eyes and enjoy the silence of deep sleep. That’s what Newton does. Or maybe he relishes American Pi rather than brooding over infinite series and calculus to find out what digits follow ‘3.14’. Someday, he finds his eyes hurting a little bit; feels in them, a slight burn…but that’s alright, isn’t it? As long as you have your credits in place, life is but a delightful journey.
Newton is having a great time with his theory classes. He finds it marvelous how effectively classes can be conducted with nothing but a computer and an internet connection. And communication and doubt clarification are way better online than verbal. All he has to do is write a few emails to his professor and there, doubt resolved. Additionally, he can take time to phrase his doubts properly, send attachments of any type, correspond with multiple professors with just a single click and so much more. Although, at times, a concern boggles his mind. What about the laboratory work and the experiments? He wonders. Voila! Softwares to simulate every kind of experiment! The online work environment couldn’t get any more conducive. It’s true that he’ll miss out on the hands-on aspect, but a visual of the experiment is apparently just as effective. But being a scholar, he needs the apparatus to test his theories. Falling fruits won’t work everywhere, will they?
With a little sob, Newton continues his online journey. Though an exceptional mind, there are certain days, when boredom hits him. That’s when he realizes the most apparent advantage of an online class. You can be in the class and yet not be in the class, the Schrodinger’s Cat as some may call it. In layman’s terms, he can just change tabs and do anything in the world: bitch online about quantum physics, get on a Discord VC with his friend Leibnitz and continue their debate, or simply binge Netflix. Attaboy! That’s how you put those lecture recordings to use.
The abundant recreation in an online platform captivates young Newton, rendering his parallel research a mere second priority. Instead of idling away time looking at splitting of white light and formulating optics, he is probably away barfing rainbows on Snapchat. Apples falling from the trees on his farm don’t evoke questions about the universe, but it’s the occasional failing of his MacOS that is of prime concern.
Well, the story isn’t just about lectures and assignments. Newton is now to face his mid-sem exams. All prepped up, he logs in to the website. Sadly though, the fragile shoulders of the website give in to the weight of hundreds of student computers logging in. Down goes the server and so, goes the day in vain. But that’s not a problem at all. After all, considering Newton and his friends are home, it’s pretty fair to assume they will have a buttload of time to kill. Why not grace them with a few more tests if one test went wrong?
Weeks pass by…
It’s a warm, sunny day. A gentle breeze caresses the hair of young Isaac Newton as he sits on the farm by his house, looking back at the past few months. What a productive spring it has been! He has passed a semester he could never dream of if he were back on campus. Though happy at heart, his curious mind craves to think about the universe and the laws that govern it. He sees hope of returning to campus and doing his research. Little does he know that all he sees is merely a mirage. A notification sound brings his wandering mind back to reality. It’s a text from his friend that reads ‘Hey Newts, dope news in the market. Next semester is gonna be online too. We planning a party. Way to go buddy!’
Universities seem to be dazzled by the success of online education. In the interest of the students, they announce the continuation of online semesters for the next year too. Who would want students to miss out on such a fun learning experience? Future plans also suggest the reservation of national campuses as heritage sites and a permanent inclusion of online education; a paradigm shift in academics.
And that, mis amigos, is how Sir Isaac Newton would have had the time of his life in the sensational days of online education.
