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@BigBoo to be fair this is technically a paper exam, in which we are supposed to use Matlab as our main working tool for most of the excercises (which is necessary, since the exam is on numerical algorithms, so there's not much you can do by hand)
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@dufferz the worst part is that the system does work fine under normal load. It's only during exam sessions, when hundereds of students need to access the same resource-intensive programs at the same time, that their system grinds to a halt or has random outages.
So I doubt they're gonna fix it anytime soon :( -
@endor Nobody in academia seems to care about exceptional system loads in practice (research is obviously a different case). If the system has that much remote elements, I'd be tempted to suggest they use something like AWS to expand their capability during exam times. No fixed server costs, and only used during exams. Given academic bureaucracy, good luck getting it implemented, but it would be a very flexible way of solving the problem.
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@powerfulparadox nah, afaik there's a significant cluster of servers and stuff hosted somewhere on-prem, most of it dedicated to computation and research and some of it dedicated to student labs.
Given their track record, I honestly doubt they even have enough people capable of handling AWS stuff - hint: they block pings across the entire uni network, both incoming and outgoing -
Hence why I believe that certifications don't mean jack shit, unless they come from established entities in the industries like Cisco, Linux Foundation, Red Hat etc. I didn't graduate, but know my way around in a server. My "technology" teachers on the other hand.. heh, don't expect too much of them. Half the time I was miles ahead of them.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach.
Especially true in classic schools.
Tldr: I just FAILED AN EXAM because of my uni's SHITTIEST SERVERS EVER. YEAR AFTER YEAR THE EXACT SAME SHIT HAPPENS, THEIR SERVERS OR NETWORK FAIL HARD AND STUDENTS FAIL EXAMS BECAUSE OF IT, AND THEY NEVER FIX IT.
FUCK
In the middle of a 3h exam at uni, using Matlab through virtualdesktop, when suddenly it stops working entirely. Trying to restart it, no go. A few other people are having the same issue as well.
After 20 minutes of waiting, one IT tech shows up saying people in other labs are having the same issue, big problems.
Ended up wasting nearly an hour waiting for shit to work again - which it did, but only when the extra time they had given us ran out.
Desperately tried to salvage what I could of my exam, but I don't think I did enough to pass.
This is not the first time it happens. Exam after exam, shit like this keeps happening over and over again, and every time some students get fucked in the ass and have to take the exam again - the next semester.
This is supposed to be one of the top universities in the country, and top 20 engineering schools in the world.
FUCK THIS SHIT
rant