For these college kids, the Net is more than just chatting and games; it's also about discussing class assignments and staying on top of deadlines

Missed an important lecture today? Unaware of your assignment deadlines? Lost your notes before a test? Don't worry. Your classmates, along with the Internet, can lend you a helping hand when in trouble.

College and university students are getting hooked online and are using the Net to make their college work easier, right from creating online groups to designing class Web sites.

Suhani Singh, a media student, missed college for three weeks due to jaundice. The only way she kept herself updated with college work and important deadlines was via email. Her class has also formed a Yahoo! Group, which makes communicating with each other easier.

Riddhi Doshi, an undergraduate student, was working with a group of fellow students on an important assignment. Due to the large distances between their residences, co-ordination of activities was difficult. Riddhi was given the task of printing out the assignment. Everyone did their bit on their own and emailed their inputs to her.

"The Internet is really helpful in this case, I can get last-minute ideas from my friends and get the job done faster. It is more convenient than meeting at someone's house, especially when we all live far from each other," says Riddhi.

Riddhi's classmate, Pooja Razdan's friend was unwell and couldn't commute to her house for assignment work. But he sent his contribution to her by email. Says Pooja: "Besides using Google for getting important information and emails for getting work done, last-minute chats on MSN make a lot of difference."

Puneet Arora, an engineering student, uses the Internet to circulate class notes and scans assignments for circulation through a Yahoo! group. If the attachments are big, he posts them on his site. "Besides that, we wanted to call everyone to college during the preparation leave for an extra lecture, so we used the Internet to send a group mail to everyone in the class, because it is more cost-effective than sending SMS or calling everyone," explains Puneet.

Puneet's friend Deepti says they have their share of fun online too. "On chat, we talk about what happened in class and have usual discussions on teachers and complain about the professors."

Besides emails and chat, some students have taken the initiative to make sites for their class. Samarth Shah, an undergraduate management student, is one of them. He has made a site about his class, where he posts notes, upcoming deadlines and tests.

He came up with the idea when given a project to create a Web site. Confused between the themes of insurance, reverse bidding, and types of phones, he got the idea of making a site about his class. "It struck me; why not make a site that will help in our daily life, rather than making something boring. I started developing the idea on these lines, and thus today I have a crude but working site on our daily life."

Even though the site is simple, it has tremendously helped his classmates. Initially, only the notes of one subject were online, but Samarth is slowly expanding his site to include notes of all subjects and topics.

"The notes are of great help at the time of exams, when most of the notes get misplaced but now you can download and read them, thus saving a lot of time and money," says Samarth. What's more, he is now working on a site covering for the entire course, and not just his division.

Samarth's informs that his classmates are currently preparing for a test: "Tomorrow there is a test, and the notes are online. My friends have blessed me on chat!" 

Students are discovering that the Net can become an important mode of interaction. "It has made communication faster, and delays which might happen due to lack of time are very rare now," says Puneet.

Deepti adds: "The Internet assures me that at the end of the day, I can fall back on it for my assignments and write-ups, if I haven't been able to work out anything on my own."

The Net is, however, the last resort for those intimidated by computers, or those who are simply ignorant. The flip side includes cases of online addiction and the rise of CTS (Carpal Tunnel Syndrome).

Despite these disadvantages, as Puneet points out, "Had the Internet not been there I'd have had some other way to do the same work. It's about how you adapt yourself to using the technology."

How to take your class online

• Create a Yahoo! Group with all your classmates on the mailing list.
• Add your friends to your chat lists on Rediff Bol, MSN, Yahoo or ICQ.
• Make a site with the help of your classmates. You can avail of free hosting on Rediff homepages and Cool Free Page.
• Create a Web log or journal for your class at RediffBlogs or any other online journal site. Web logs are easy to update and offer great features to interact with your classmates.