MEOWS 3.0: Making the Most Out of Your Zoom Subscription
By: Adam I. Vida
A week had passed since the UST College of Science’s Modified Enhanced Online Week of Science was conducted for the 3rd time last April 4–8, 2022, and the consequences of being FULLY asynchronous in mind, body, and spirit were now manifesting through the backlogs of forgotten assessment tasks.
MEOWS 3.0 started off with an online opening ceremony for the students while the faculty got to experience the nostalgic freezing temperature of the Central Laboratory Auditorium. A hybrid mass wherein enthusiastic students willing to enter the mass in their physical forms went to the Santissimo Rosario Parish while those incapable of doing so typed, “amen”, at least once for their attendance. Finally, the Parangal ng UST Science Awards (PUSA) flooded every Facebook’s timeline as students deservedly share their hard-earned honors while those whose names were initially not included can only watch in silence (they were silent in messaging their respective block presidents on why their names were not in the list). Since PUSA was the last community event for the whole college, we could now proceed into the floods of Zoom links waiting for us courtesy of the College of Science Student Council (CSSC) and the academic departments.
As a cultured man, getting up at Science Week at your earliest convenience would mean a required webinar to watch. As students set up their Zooms with both eyes closed, the only seams of consciousness to arrive again would be during the time for evaluations to mark one’s attendance. The week was going to either slip us between the consciousness of listening and the unconsciousness of dissociating or falling asleep, a battle every student is struggling against. That is until Alternative Classes were introduced for Science Week, the DIY Webinar of every class assigned. Being the organizers of your own event, the motivation to attend webinars was slightly widened to your own class instead of sheltering yourself from every Zoom link on sight.
On the other hand, being a CSSC member meant that this week would be the culmination of your efforts and plans since the start of the semester. A march from day to day supporting different webinars and activities with such diverse topics that one could choose from. It’s still such a shame that we could not see how the members bounce off from one Zoom link to another in supporting their events which would be the equivalent of them running around the 3r floor of the Main Building. Nevertheless, activities like G KNB, Busking in E-Noval, and LakwatSCI were online simulations of the things we do miss the most: having fun.
Slowly recovering from the pandemic would not mean that the online fatigue would slowly go away as well. Currently, we are still struck by a plethora of Zoom calls and Google Documents like jumpscares in a horror movie with horror movies being more tolerable than online classes. Science Week remains to be a pillar for the students to feel rested while listening to the required webinars and washing the dishes (don’t ever tell your parents that you’re having asynchronous classes). At the end of the week, the desire to be back in face to face classes remains more vigilant than ever and the will to pursue one’s nearest deadline continues to grow more dormant with time.
