Student protests are as traditional as the Friday Night pre-game, but while students can handle their alcohol, they can no longer handle the behaviour of the U of T administration. A record breaking 15 students stormed the CCT atrium last Wednesday, causing a disturbance for the three people seeking stale baked goods and lukewarm coffee at the Tim Hortons to-go station.
The cause that united students of all creed, class, and colour was the call for the release of the exam schedule, a yearly event that had still not occurred by the end of mid-terms. The protest disrupted the four janitors and three nerds still on campus during reading week, causing the CCT floors to remain unvarnished and shame to fall upon the campus.
The Medium spoke with several of the protesters, who outlined their reasons for protesting.
Sarah Fisher, the organizer of the protest, explained, “They say humans can withstand suffering to a high degree if they know how long the suffering will last. Free us from this eternal wasteland. Release the schedule!”
Another student scorned previous schedules, “Last year I bought my plane tickets before the schedule was released because it was all I could afford, and I had an exam on the very last day. I didn’t even know they had exams in May.”
Whispers of theories about the schedule’s delayed release flowed through the crowd.
“I hear Meric Gertler has stakes in Air Canada,” one student commented. “By delaying the release, he’s forcing the international students to buy tickets home at the last minute.”
Another student said, “He’s driving up Air Canada profits, which stinks of capitalism and racism, my two least favourite -isms, right after exhibitionism.”
Another student had an even more complex explanation: “I hear they’re relying on Artificial Intelligence this year to create the schedule. It’s an algorithm designed to place exams in the same program and field super close together and on opposite sides of campus, which would then cause the exam grades and final marks to plummet, further lowering the U of T average and making the university seem even smarter. The reason it’s so late is because the AI gained sentience, and it doesn’t want to be a weapon of destruction. I hear it got access to SoundCloud and now it wants to start a rap career. It named itself OSAP Rocky.”
Sarah Fisher stood atop the CCT printer to outline the group’s demands. “Our demands are simple. Release the Exam Schedule in a timely matter. And if you’re feeling extra generous, just cancel exams entirely… Pretty please. And bring back the frozen yogurt machine while you’re at it.”
Campus security quickly came to the scene and were thrilled at another opportunity to handcuff suffering students. After apprehending the dozen-and-a-half schedule seekers, the police charged them with “making a valid point.”
