Wow, it's been a really long time since I've blogged but hey, it's been EXAM SEASON, the worst few weeks of every student's year. For a couple of weeks twice a year, every student morphs from being a fairly rational and well put together (if heavy-drinking) person, into an emotional and physical wreck. Procrastination becomes an art form, and revision becomes a swear word. The library becomes home, and socialising finally takes second place to actual, grown up university work. Hands cramp writing up lectures, and eyes become slightly less functional from reading and writing for 12 hours a day. Coffee and energy drinks become lifelines and sleep becomes a welcomed break from revision. Walking round any university library, the casual observer will more than likely see tears, hair-pulling and faces that show nothing but resignation to failure and careful listening will more than likely reveal a chorus of "I'm going to fail", "Well shit, I've never seen that before" and "Oh bugger it, who's heading to the Union?". I think most students are aware that, 99% of the time, last minute cramming doesn't work, but we all do it, we all still pull all-nighters, we all still have that drink when we know we should probably still be in the library, and we all still try to remember that our coursework does count for something.
Some people love exams, and deal with them really well, I, on the other hand, hate them with a passion. I struggle to focus and revise until the last minute (although I've been better this year) and I genuinely believe that if more of my grades were based on coursework, I would look a hell of a lot smarter than I do. That said, usually, I come out of exams feeling that I've done all right, and that I've probably done enough to pass (with the notable exception of my Psychology of Language exam a week ago where I sat down and literally could not answer a single question). I guess just now I'm really struggling with knowing that I could have, and probably should have done better in this set of exams, but there's nothing I can do now. I'm still not sure what I want to do after I leave uni so I really find it difficult to focus on working, I have nothing to aim for just now. I guess exam season just really brings issues like this home, especially now that my grades actually count for things. In first and second year, floating along was pretty easy, and not having the pressure of knowing that every grade has the potential to affect the rest of your life... well, it just made things a whole lot nicer. I have to confess, I get a bit of a laugh out of watching first and second year students panicking about exams (apart from really vocational degrees where the grades still matter), and thinking about how they still really have it all to come.
I think exam time makes you learn a lot about yourself, about your priorities, your strengths, weaknesses and your own resilience. Personally, I try not to let exams stress me out any more than they have to, I mean, there's always resits right?
No comments:
Post a Comment