THE FIRST COLLEGE VIVA
Is it EASY or CRAZY?
Let’s start with what is Viva actually? It is a type of verbal exam much like quizzes in which the invigilator asks you a few questions from the syllabus and more often beyond it.
Let’s begin with…….
Freshers are all set to go through a gamut of first-time experiences in their college life. The first day in a new place as an unfamiliar space, meeting new people who will share the college four walls with you and probably your room too, making friends and being part of peers that may or may not have something in common with you. I think that’s where you incur your first “VIVA”, answering those shooting questions from your newly found peers, batchmates, seniors and teachers. College life is supposed to be fun and and filled with a lot of new experiences. At least this is what we assume…! But every morning waits to unfold something different, exciting, thrilling and altogether exhilarating.
One of many such days are the PRACTICAL EXAMINATION days and hence VIVAS. And the cherry on top is when you are informed that your viva external is one of those infamous professors, whose mere footsteps can lead to your nervous breakdown. That is when you realize that your freaking destiny is written in golden verses!! and you wander in search of enlightenment, your destination? it is your choicest seniors. Lay down before them with open arms and absorb their words of wisdom, tactics, techniques and schemes :) to ace this approaching challenge.
The night before the D-Day is more of a rollercoaster ride with the mood swinging between “Padhlete hain yaar” and “Apna toh kuch nahi hona”. Nevertheless you will have to be on your toes while you defend your answer to complex questions that are thrown on you out of nowhere or rather stand with your eyes looking at your feet accepting defeat (trust me its much better than arguing!)
The first viva looks like a very nerve-wrecking thing to say the least “Are they really sure they need you?” It’s somewhat of a nightmare, but it is done!! Yeah!
The next day, you are told that your “suppressed feelings of inadequacy” and how your behavior towards class demonstrated signs of ‘too much estrangement’.
You don’t know how to feel because you are never taught when or what to do or say. Apparently its one constant trial one after another where you’ll need to prove yourself again and again. Who knows? Maybe being too good is something else just as bad. So, for now, question: What’s going on? Let’s find out hahaha!
During Viva, you feel like a CRIMINAL!!
And when you come out, you feel like a CELEBRITY!! Like kya pucha? Kya hua andar?
After getting to know how are college vivas actually, you are now required to know how to clear these exams and you are mistaken here if you feel that vivas of all subjects are going to be of same kind. For different subject, you need to be prepared in a different way and you don’t even know what would be the mood of the invigilator at that time.
Time after time you become habitual to it and viva becomes normal.
And always remember that full marks in Viva is a road not taken, so don’t bother pondering over it that much. Just do your best and leave the rest.
Hopefully I think you have a better understanding of how a college viva is actually!!
Yatin Modi
