Who needs amusement parks when you have the Pakistani college/university registration process?
Who needs amusement parks when you have the Pakistani college/university registration process? So many drops and climbs, twists and turns, and in the end, you will feel slightly sick.
Another semester means another marathon of desk-hopping and form-chasing. It is time to forget studying and start training for the real challenge: surviving the registration process. Yes, you heard me right. The registration process in Pakistan is not a procedure; it is a penalty. The only thing missing is a judge banging a gavel every time your form gets rejected. Why? Because you used the wrong pen.
Let’s take a journey through the seven circles of administrative hell. Students are forced to move from one office to another for the smallest five-minute formalities. First, you collect a form. Then you fill it out. Then you submit it somewhere else. Then you wait for verification. Then you wait some more. Then you go to another office for a signature. Then another office for approval. Then you wait again, not because anything is processing, but because the clerk is having tea. Then lunch. Then tea again. By the time he’s done, it’s 2:55, and the office closes at 3:00. “Come tomorrow,” he says, smiling like his happiness isn’t built on my exhaustion.
And if you’re still conscious, here comes the best part: waiting for the department head’s stamp. You wait while he’s “in a meeting,” “busy,” or “just stepped out,” only to be told, “Come tomorrow.” Which, of course, somehow turns into next week. Or next month. Or whenever the dean feels like existing again.
And just when you think you’re done, you hear the legendary phrase: “Go ask in the other building.” The other building. A full kilometre away. In 40-degree heat. With no shade and definitely no water cooler. You walk there because rickshaws cost money, and you already spent your budget on photocopies of documents you’ve submitted seventeen times. And God forbid even if one tiny detail is wrong…a misplaced signature, an incomplete line, a document stapled incorrectly…you are demoted back to Level One, “This Form Requires That Form” loop. Around and around you go again.
Then come the receipts. You must get a receipt and fill out four pages by hand. Yes, by hand. In 2026. One handwritten form for the budget office, one for the course department, one for administration, and one for you as a souvenir of your trauma. Frame it. Hang it on your wall. Let it remind you that you survived.
This is normal student life. This is what happens when the glossy brochures lie. You know the ones: “World-class infrastructure!”, “Student-friendly environment!”, “Register in minutes!” Meanwhile, you’re standing in a corridor fanning yourself with a form that needs “one more stamp.”
At this point, I’m less surprised and more impressed by the commitment to repetition. Every semester begins the same way. Not with excitement. Not with new books. Not with fresh goals. Oh no. It begins with stress, confusion, and a long list of offices to visit. While other countries start the semester with orientation, we start with frustration. We don’t feel ready for classes; we feel ready for the Stamping Olympics.
That’s right! The semester begins with a new game called “Find the Office That Is Responsible for This,” and the hint is that it’s always the one that is closed for lunch. Because obviously putting up a sign with office hours would be too modern. This confusion further leads to the ultimate humble pie: standing in the wrong line for 45 minutes, behind a guy who’s also in the wrong line, both of you too afraid to ask because asking means being directed to another line, which is also wrong. It’s lines all the way down.
Throughout this ordeal, students stand in crowded queues for hours just to submit documents that could be uploaded online in minutes. And when they finally reach the front, they find offices closed, staff on break, or systems down, only to be told to come again tomorrow. Always tomorrow. Never today. I guess today is apparently a concept that hasn’t reached the administration yet. They’re living in a different decade. Possibly a different century.
Perhaps the most absurd part is that none of this needs to happen. Almost everything can be done online: applications, documents, fee payments, approvals, and status updates. All of it. The technology exists, and implementing it is entirely feasible. Yet, outdated mindsets run the show, leaving students to keep chasing stamps and signatures as if their future is nothing without bureaucratic blessing.
What’s worse? Students from far-off cities suffer the most. They travel for hours just to submit papers or get approvals, while their families spend money they do not have. Parents take leave from work. Students with health issues struggle even more. Meanwhile, those with connections move through effortlessly. Privilege gets signatures. The rest get “Office closed.”
Education is supposed to be about merit. Instead, it has become a cardio workout of patience, stamina, and survival. I mean…who needs a fitness subscription when you can just enrol in a Pakistani institution? You’ll walk miles. You’ll wait for hours. You’ll develop calf muscles that would make an Olympian jealous. You’ll also develop an intimate knowledge of every bench, every water filter, and every pebble on campus. By the time you graduate, you could give guided tours blindfolded.
And what makes it all so beautifully ironic is that our institutions love to talk about innovation, technology, and preparing students for the century ahead. They tell us to think future-ready, act future-ready, and learn future-ready skills. Yet their own systems are stuck decades behind. They want us to be AI-ready while they are still trying to figure out how a printer works. They preach Digital Pakistan while we fill forms by hand.
To summarize this, students are not asking for extravagant measures. They are asking for a little common courtesy. One online portal. Clear instructions. Digital submissions. Online payments. Application tracking. That is it. Students should not have to run across campuses begging for stamps like medieval peasants seeking the king’s approval just to continue their education.
Administrators, bureaucrats, everyone sitting in air-conditioned offices while we stand in the heat...we are speaking to you. Change it immediately.
But until that evolution, the system executes its default settings. So yes. Another semester begins. Another marathon awaits. Time to update my résumé: Professional Line-Stander, Form-Filler Extraordinaire, and Survivor of the Other Building.
