In February of 1935, the students of the Royal Medical College of Baghdad went on strike to protest the Faculty of Medicine’s decision to extend the course requirements from five to six years and to reduce the salaries of resident doctors during their first year of employment in the Health Department, a contract that most students were obliged to take in exchange for state-sponsored education. When the strike lasted weeks, the Faculty of Medicine challenged the students by giving them an ultimatum: should the protestors not return to the classroom within two days, they would face suspension. When a few returned to the college, the administration quickly declared the strike a failure, undermining the remaining protestors. The administration's failure to negotiate with the medical students and address their grievances unintentionally evoked the organization of Iraq’s future doctors early on in their career. The Iraqi Monarchy’s various hegemonic projects depended on these future state-intermediaries. The graduating doctors harboured various visions of what the future of their state should look like. In most cases, these visions countered the Monarchy’s agenda. This paper argues that in failing to negotiate with these students, the state unintentionally fuelled the mobilization of its future professionals against its vulnerabilities. The February strike coincides with the diffusion of al-Bait University, a short-lived experiment that oversaw the administration of Iraq's various professional schools. The diffusion of Al Bait thwarted cross-colleges student organizations. This paper contends that following the end of al-Bait, the formation of student organizations which included Iraq's various professional schools is correlated to the Faculty of Medicine's failure to negotiate with the striking medical students. Therefore, the February 1935 medical students' strike should not be viewed as a failure, rather as a moment where future state-intermediaries recognized the importance of collective mobilization against policies that negatively impacted their interests. This paper relies on newspaper articles from Baghdad, England, Mandated Palestine, and Egypt. It also draws on archival research conducted at KEW, American University of Beirut, and College Park, as well as on oral interviews, and legal statutes to highlight the magnitude of this short lived strike on the mentalite of the demonstrators, the college’s administrators, and the state.