First-year undeclared student Minnie Chan tried to avoid getting sick before her midterms by downing a glass of Airborne health formula and going to bed early every night, but she succumbed to illness last Sunday after several of her floormates caught the flu.
“It’s just annoying,” said Chan, who said she is suffering from a persistent cough and clogged nose. “I can’t concentrate as well.”
Chris Lewis, the interim director of nursing at the Ashe Center, said she has observed an increase in student visits to the clinic.
“We had a late onset of influenza in Los Angeles about two weeks ago,” Lewis said.
Sickness seems unavoidable at this time of the quarter. Students attend lectures punctuated by storms of coughing and return home to the dormitories where germs are shared along with living space.
Chan said she would not let sickness get in the way. She has not missed a single class since she fell ill Sunday.
“As long as you can still basically function, I think you should go (to class),” Chan said.
However, struggling past illness to take exams is not always the right course of action, Lewis said.
“What the test is really proving is only how well they can do while they’re sick, not how well they can do in the class,” Lewis said.
However, a respect for the competitive academic environment of the university keeps most students trudging to class and struggling through exams despite suboptimal health.
First-year chemistry student Alli Quan did not ask for preferential treatment from her professors, despite “feeling the sickest I have ever been in my life.”
“I felt like just saying that I was sick wasn’t that great of an excuse. I know a lot of people have to take midterms while sick; it’s just part of what you have to do,” said Quan, who spent the better part of the week preceding her midterms in bed with a fever.
Already caught up with the breakneck pace of the quarter system, students such as Chan and Quan said they simply do not have time to be sick.
“The tough thing about this school is that it doesn’t stop for you,” said Tanuj Thapliyal, a second-year bioengineering student. “The classes keep going, the next week just keeps coming. You just have to do the best you can and do better on the next test.”
The effects of illness can be disastrous. Thapliyal said he missed two exams last year due to an illness so severe he was hospitalized. His father flew down from San Jose to advocate to his professors on his behalf and spared Thapliyal’s transcript from two “incomplete” marks.
A bowel infection during finals week last quarter had drastic consequences for second-year psychology student Haesue Jo, who is now struggling to complete her major prerequisites as a result.
Jo said the symptoms began to show the night before her final and she ended up running to class having slept through most of her test.
Her professor presented her with a choice: Take the exam now or receive an incomplete.
“I didn’t feel like physically able to sit through the three-hour test, and I couldn’t cram because I was asleep and sick,” Jo said. “I was going to fail the final anyway, so I thought I might as well just retake the class.”
Jo is currently retaking the class, which is the first of a series that she must finish by the end of this year to be eligible for the psychology major.
Departmental policy allows professors free reign to determine missed exam policies, said Barbara Knowlton, the undergraduate vice chair for the psychology department. When a student fails to complete an exam for whatever reason, an incomplete grade is assigned and the student must discuss options with the professor, according to the current UCLA General Catalog.
“The only thing that it says in the departmental regulation is that it’s up to faculty to decide,” Knowlton said.
She advises students to know what they are getting into in advance.
“We encourage faculty to make the policy known ahead of time for students on the syllabus,” Knowlton said. “If professors say in advance that they don’t give makeup exams, you don’t have a lot of recourse to ask for one.”
These exam policies are grounded in precedent, said undergraduate political science advisor James Bondurant.
“Some students just don’t have good character, and they abuse professors’ leniency,” Bondurant said.
However, many professors are quite willing to work around students’ illnesses. Political science professor Lynn Vavreck finds doctor’s notes a simple solution to missed midterms.
“If they can bring me a doctor’s note telling me that they were too sick to study or take the exam, I’ll reschedule the test for them,” Vavreck said.
Many sick students have experienced compassion from understanding professors.
Second-year electrical engineering student Greg Jones missed a final last year because his lung collapsed the day before. His professor wrote him another final.
“My professor was actually really nice about it,” Jones said.
Thapliyal said he was similarly provided for during his illness.
“To be honest, I felt like they were pretty generous. (My professors) could have easily failed me,” Thapliyal said.
Vavreck said she accepts that illness during exams is at times too great of a burden for students to bear.
“If you’re sick, you’re sick. There’s nothing you can do about it,” Vavreck said.