Why is the second midterm also in the same time as the life science exam?
Cruelty of course! No, seriously, when we start organizing a large course like 21a, the first thing we do is to organize the rooms, at least three months before the actual exam. We did that early August for this course. All the rest of the organization of 21a, the syllabus etc depend crucially on these dates. There are not so many days eligible for midterm exam dates due to a few religious holidays and due to syllabus constraints. But the main issue is finding an exam room for 250-300 students. The life science exam happens during a regular class and it would room-wise have been possible to move those dates because the rooms are anyway booked for classes. But changing an announced exam date is always problematic, after the semester has started, hundreds of people have organized their calendars already. We would not have changed the exam dates even in September, since sport coaches or art directors might already have had a look at the exam schedules. To prepair for a day with two exams,
