Chapter#1

 Chapter#1: An Introduction to Semester System

For a long period of time, for almost a decade, my mum believed that I was a special person. She thought that I was a born genius, an artist, and an intelligent person who would exceptionally get good grades throughout my life. The minute I turned three, she entombed me that her son, I should be an engineer, like a typical family back in the early 2000s. Engineer, doctor and a profession in army were considered perfect, and the only profession where every mother and father of a typical desi family wanted their child to be.

Until her expectations were shattered by the result of my SSC-1 in which I was able to secure only 330/525. It was shattered again after my SSC-2 result in which I was able to secure only 774/1050. Then again in HSSC-1 when I had to improve it again and finally getting 779/1100 in HSSC-2.

Both of my parents were disappointed in me. As a first born child in the family, they had very high expectations from me. But no matter how much I tried, how much I wrote down, practiced problems, memorize theory, understood concepts, still I couldn’t cross the average barrier. At 70.8 percent in HSSC-2 I was labelled as an average student, not so special, by my teachers which infuriated my mother, but finally accepted that I was an average student after a few months later.

I wasn’t a very intelligent person, even dumb sometimes. I wasn’t very strong in mathematics nor in any science subject. I had an interest in computers and tech since my childhood because of an enormous amount of video games I had played. My Mamu(Uncle) gifted me a PlayStation 2 back in my 2004 and I simply loved that console. I remembered one of my strongest memories of booting Grand Theft Auto Sanandreas for the first time and totally fell in love with it. After that, a few years later, I shifted to PC and got in the hobby of building computers. Due to video games, I wanted to learn programming, the game development and computers in general so I thought computer science was good option and gradually began to apply for universities offering computer science programs after I had given the final exams of HSSC-2.

The summer of 2019 was full of uncertainty, excitement, and nostalgia. I used to study on my home’s rooftops enjoying the golden hour and chai. We had just been knocked out of the men’s world cup and I thought about the next world cup, which will be right after I had graduated. At that time, four years felt just a tiny time lapse of my life. A few years that will be over before I know it.

From 16^th July to the end of August, I started my long and tiring journey of entry tests. Week after week, I was busy in rushing from one university to another. Each of my peers felt like an absolute stranger. Even in a room containing hundreds of people, it felt as if I was alone. Since we all were strangers there was absolutely no way to get help. With each test I gave, I definitely knew that whether I will be short listed or not. I knew I wasn’t going to be short listed in Nust due to its competitiveness. I had a fifty-fifty chance I was going to short-listed in Comsats. For Air and Bahira, I had uncertainity as I had given the tests, non-serious.

And then the unluckiest thing happened. I was denied admission in software engineering at Comsats with a margin of just one aggregate. At seventy-four point zero nine, I was denied admission, and the one that got seventy-four point seventeen, he was shortlisted. It also happened that during that year, in the first time in the history of Comsats no second list of software engineering merit was listed. I was very, very unlucky.

I gained admission in Air in B.S Cyber Security. But made it in CS in the second list. As the fee voucher was dropped, I submitted it, or rather my father submitted it without any thoughts afterwards. Two days later, I got a call from Bahria that I was short listed for the interview. I never went, as I had submitted the fees of Air. But if the call came earlier before I had submitted the admission fees of Air, I would have gone to Bahira as in those days, Bahria had a better CS program.  Everything was set and final. It was the calm before the storm. I only had a couple of weeks, before starting my new journey of four years. I was studying coed education after 7 years and I wondered how it would be to study in a coed environment.

This book is my experiences at Air university. For at least half of my degree, I was fighting and surviving. I had two nervous breakdowns, some of the best experiences of my life, I rediscovered myself, I met some of the best folks who helped me during my dire times, and those who really, really helped me in pushing through some of the toughest courses. I met selfish, narcissist assholes who only thought about themselves and conversely some of the best friends who wanted me to pass. But above all, my experience at Air university, defined me into a person I am today. I learned some lessons the hard way, and I suffered. In the end, I thank God for all the lessons and the pain, because only through suffering and pain, I contemplated on what I really wanted. What were my strengths and weaknesses, but above all it made me embrace myself. That I wasn’t a genius nor a dunce. I was average or some people call it, a B- or a slightly below average student.

I don’t know much about the orientation but I do remember that it happened on 5^th of September. It was a hot day and in my fancy white t-shirt and typical jeans, I attended the ceremony. Mostly, the ceremony was about societies and the general information regarding university life and relative marking. Back then, I couldn’t understand what the fuss was all about, since many of the people who had experience in studying in a relative marking system told me that it was a tough marking system.

“There will be a lot of jealousy, drama and competition.” Raja Sahab told me.

“Betrayals will come, your observations about your peers will grow inconsiderably, but you have to deal everything with patience…and also pray, because in relative marking you need to outsmart everyone to get an exception grade.”

Raja Sahab or Raja Kamal was my mamu who had studied Mechatronics engineering from 2011-2015 at Air. He was family and the best gaming buddy I ever have. We have played together a lot of video games. My friendship with him is immeasurable, and he is the best buddy I have.

During the ceremony, they served us pastries, chai and biscuits which made father happy. They told us we were among the top 13 percent to be ever selected. I never got the prospectus on the first day and instead roamed the university for the schedule of classes. As I moved from one department to another, I got to know almost all of the department names and their locations.

Right by the entrance, on the right was the administration office and below it was the humanities and social sciences department.  Just a few steps above of administration office to its left was the library and the auditorium. 

Below that building was the café and the gym, two badminton courts were there, one was right in front of it, the other a few meters to the left. Right in front of it was the FMC lawn, and on the left of it was the Fazaia Medical College, the faculty of Computing and AI by then had been shifted to the basement of it. In front of Fazaia was the IAA block, the home for Aeronautical engineering, mechanical engineering, mathematics, and physics. On the right of IAA was the BBA lawn, one of the most populated areas of the university.

As the faculty and the furniture was being shifted, they gave us a week off. Which was frustrating because I had been holed up at my home, with nothing to do. One week off meant, more boredom and more waiting for a new chapter to begin in my life. I solved the boredom problem with buying The Witcher 3 on steam, and busied myself in playing through the main storyline of the game.

 

Chapter#2

It felt strange, very strange when I woke up at 13^th September to put on a typical high neck and jeans instead of a uniform. If I remember correctly, it was a hot day and coming to the university for the first time felt as if I was coming to an American high school (as I have seen them in the movies). Back in my college days, I was a prisoner who got up daily to march into a small closed apartment and take my classes in a single room from 8 to 2 pm. Now, I was hustling from one department to another which were spread within a few hundred meters. I didn’t know where I would be taking my classes and after asking one senior where I would be taking my classes, he guided me that I should go to FMC basement as the department of CS and AI had been shifted there.

I swiftly went, past scores of students, staff and teachers towards the basement. I looked at my phone, opened the gallery to look at the pic of the schedule I had taken a week ago. I looked at the Wednesday slots and in the bottom right of the slot, the room number was mentioned.

“CS-002”

As I entered the basement, there were two rooms on the left. After that was a hall. The hall was in pentagon shape and the other rooms were located at the end of each arm of the pentagon.

The room in which I was supposed to be was the second one on the left.

And that is where I met my classmates and Ms. Hina Munir. Ms. Hina Munir was the first teacher I met in Air University. She was standing on the podium as I entered the room. The boys were sitting on the left side of the chairs while the girls were sitting in the first two rows on the right side. Behind them, rest of the boys were seated.

I sat in the second last row, and blended in with the boys.

We were nervous, we were not in uniforms. I felt weird that I was taking a class without a uniform on.

The first words that came out of Ma’am Hina’s mouth were.

“Your attendance is online based. If you are marked absent, I cannot undo and wont be able to help you if it gets short, keep that in mind.”

 In university, the lectures were of 50 minutes.  A 3 credit hour lecture meant 3 classes of 1 hour in a week. We had to keep our attendance above 75% which meant that we could be absent from the class for 9 times. There was total freedom to come and go to the classes but as freshies we tried our best to keep the attendance at 100 percent till the finals.

I can’t remember the first lecture of ma’am Hina as I am writing this three year later. All I know is that, the lecture was about general introduction of English language. What I remembered on the first day was our third class, which has been entombed in my brain, even after many years.

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