Surviving Mid-Terms

Exams have never been one of my strong suits; the pressure to perform well under a limited period of time reinforced by an overbearing ticking clock just isn’t my cup of tea. So when I found out that America seem to enjoy testing their students even more than British institutions I was a little horrified. More exams? Not what I signed up for.  

Social life? Forget it.

Food? Only if cookie dough counts as one of your ‘five a day’.

Sleep? Well that’s just a good ten hours of your time wasted.

College life is all about maintaining that important balance between the 3 ‘S’ words: studying, sleeping and socialising. But it appears the stress of tests, essays and projects all due at the same time is too much for some students to handle.

Earlier this week I decided it was probably a good idea to get a couple hours of cramming in before one of my mid-term exams. I set up my laptop in the quiet group study area of the library, notes and highlighter at the ready, surrounded by piles of novels, and I began to get my geek on. I knew that my fellow classmates took these exams pretty seriously, but I didn’t quite realise the extent to how far people pushed themselves for just a small exam in the middle of the semester. A guy came and sat opposite me at the table and instead of unloading brick-like books from his rucksack, he proceeded to rest his head in his arms and fall asleep. ‘Wow’ I thought, this guy really was taking studying to the extreme. When he came to a little later, I decided to ask him if he was unable to find somewhere a little more comfortable than a wooden chair and table in the middle of the library for a snooze. Either he had trouble understanding my accent, which is apparently quite easy to misinterpret, or he thought I was mad. Clearly the library was a perfect place to nap, it’s warm and quiet. But it got me thinking, this guy was evidently exhausted from sleep deprivation - just one out of hundreds of students that continually choose studying (or partying) over sleep. But how healthy really is this lifestyle? Constant stress and lack of sleep makes me irritable and short tempered, but the guy I met in the library seemed totally transformed into a sleep walking zombie. He nearly tripped over my laptop lead as I advised him that a strong black coffee would probably help. I vote that the week of mid-term exams should be renamed to 'zombie week' instead. Students aimlessly walk around with their eyes stuck to their iphones anyway, so the connection to zombies doesn't seem that far fetched. Life, or at least life outside of the classroom, appears to be draining all energy from them, there's only one thing on their mind - must pass exam. If you survive without bags under your eyes or an emotional breakdown, congratulations and welcome to the post-apocalyptic world.