On Monday, January 13, 2025, teachers across campus were scrambling to inform their students. Through email, through WhatsApp, through study associations and academic advisors, students were told that they were temporarily unable to access some systems. Course material was distributed via Dropbox so students could still study, and desks were set up where students could go with questions. By Thursday, January 16, most systems were back online.

Still, TU/e was full-fledged panic mode. A crisis team was set up and it was decided to move the entire teaching schedule up by a week. This is hard on everyone involved, but concerns a well thought-out decision – I assume – by the crisis team. The biggest motivation behind it: students would otherwise be unable to prepare properly for their exams.

Yet it was the students who, like very hungry caterpillars, immediately began sending emails. Lecturers were bombarded with questions about how to deal with the scheduled family visit to the US, which now suddenly coincided with the resit for course XYZ. And that one week less of teaching in quarter 3, won’t that be a huge problem for study feasibility? And why should students “bear the consequences” for the fact that TU/e “had a problem they weren't ready for”?

Sure, some are impacted heavily by this. Students who go on exchanges, for example. But if there’s one thing that was at the center of this crisis, it was the students! The fact that students have the nerve to start a petition saying that TU/e should be more student-centered is disgraceful to me.

Dear students, TU/e was ready for this situation. The IT people were aware of the hacking attempt within a few hours and the whole university was up and running again within a week. If they hadn’t been ready, all of you could’ve put 20 euros in a jar to help pay for the 200,000 euro ransom, as Maastricht was forced to do in 2019 (there, they needed more than 2 weeks to get back online, but since all of this took place over Christmas, students weren’t affected much. They could go on vacation as planned).

So as far as I'm concerned, dear students, suck it up. Shit happens. You’ll have to choose: exam, or vacation. You are all mature enough to make that decision for yourselves. In any case, I am not organizing any extra exam attempts for my course. If you can't take the resit, I'll see you again next September.