Finals season, frustration, and freedom at last!

         If you are a university student like me, then you can relate to the ever frustrating end-of-semester final exam season. During the final exam season, there is always that eerie atmosphere where everyone realizes that the semester and the fun times are over. It is actually the time to get serious and study! If you are not a university student yet, then this blog will be a little sneak peek into the future. Or if you have already graduated from university and do not have to face the emotional roller coaster of the end-of-semester final exams, then congratulations the bad days are behind you and now it is all sunshine and bird chirps. 

Now finals season starts with looking at your current grades and then calculating how much you need to achieve your personal target. This target can be getting that A+ or simply passing the course. It also depends upon the type of class. If it is a GPA booster class called “Science fiction films in the 1980s” then the target can be getting an A+ or if it is “Thermodynamics and statistical chemistry” then passing can be a target. During the desired grades calculation period, we actually get to appreciate the hard work and effort the profs take to craft this intricate document aka syllabus. Throughout the semester, the course syllabus is located in some archive folder on your computer or in a pile of papers you have been collecting. I don’t know if you can relate, I never care about the syllabus until the final exam season, when I actually have to know how much the final exam is worth. After a deep session of calculations and endless permutation combination of final exam grades, the desired grade is calculated and is posted on the walls as a study motivation. The next step is to make a timetable that will incorporate a massive study session and some downtime with friends in the evening. Most university students, including myself, are night owls. Many prefer to study and cram at night and take a breather in the morning. That is a number one priority, to figure out if you are a night owl or an early riser. It is imperative to build a study schedule based on your preferences, otherwise, the finals season is just another nightmare. After the study schedule is designed and developed, the hardest part is to stick to it. After convincing your stubborn brain to stick and follow the timetable, it is the attack time. Attack and cram everything you learned in this semester, the hard work you put into the entire semester boils down to this short period, “The finals season”, aka the number one villain of the student life. 

Finals season can also be the number one sales period for coffee companies like Starbuck and Dunkin’. There are many students standing in huge lines just to get their daily shot of caffeine. Because without caffeine, the final season cannot be tackled, am I right all the readers who can relate? After getting that caffeine shot, our all-time helpers like Quizlet flashcards help with the tremendous memorization. As a biochemistry student. I am required to take a few microbiology courses, hence, in my medical microbiology course, I had to memorize so many bacterias and how they cause disease. So in that scenario, Quizlet helped. But the only side effect was that millions of bacteria still haunt me in my nightmares. Then other tools like Spotify, a number one source of study music playlists also come to the aid of suffering university students. But then with all this pressure that comes with the finals season, there is always the downtime with friends that we look forward to. Without the hassle of getting to class on time, we are allowed to have a schedule of our own during the finals season. So after a day of cramming and grinding, I often look forward to eating with my friends in the campus dining hall. The campus dining hall food is a result of talent more significant than Gordon Ramsay and his world-renowned entrées. Instead, the campus food is a hallmark of the emerging cooking talent on this planet where the skill of finding the most unpalatable food is highlighted.  I still have no clue how the campus dining halls find the weirdest type of food that hurt my palate to the point that even dried bread along with spinach smoothie feels like a luxury. Anyways, the bonding time and sharing how each other’s study sessions are enjoyable. And if anybody had an exam we would have a long discussion about it. These breathers are very essential during finals season. 

During the finals season, the idea of having a study group where we come together and motivate each other is rewarding as well. In a study group, we study for a solid half an hour and then talk for a while. But then it is fun and a good stress buster. That is the whole point of university right, studying and having fun at the same time? Yes, it is, at least in my opinion. Small excursions in nature are also a great study break for us university students. So after all, finals may not be that bad. At least we can incorporate study breaks into our endless hours of studying. 

After this schedule of studying and taking breaks, we all enter those exam halls where everything is chaotic. The tense atmosphere where everyone has their nerves high surrounds us. Then we sit down, take a few deep breaths, and attack the exam in front. There are a few questions, where there is no other option but to write everything because we ourselves don’t know what is happening. So writing every formula or theory is the best option, so that there is some hope to get that partial credit. Then there are some questions that we can do in our sleep, they are a cakewalk. So with this, the bitter-sweet exam season is done. 

It is a journey, the final exam season is definitely a journey. There is a lingering sense of being overwhelmed by the horror of “what if…” thoughts, “What if I don’t get the grade I want?”, “What if my GPA goes down?”, “What if my grad school application is ruined by my grade?”, etc. There are endless worries about the future, but then there is one thing that keeps us all going, and it is not caffeine, it is the trust we have in ourselves. Making a study schedule, calculating the grade we want, and having the “what if” thoughts are a sign that you care and you will work hard to get where you want to be. There will be self-doubting moments, but they can be brushed off by studying hard and believing that I did my best. Finals season, yes can be daunting, yet they teach us something, that never to be afraid of hard work. Hard work always gets us where we want to be. Never giving up is also something that the finals season teaches us. Although the results may not be apparent as yet, nevertheless, with the same determination and grit, we will get there. Finals season also signifies how important our study groups and friends are. They motivate and entertain us throughout this dark tunnel. So valuing them is crucial. After all, the university is all about studying and having fun. And as I mentioned at the beginning of the blog that after graduating from university it is all sunshine and bird chirps. That is not quite true, at least that is what my parents say. They always mention that there is always some frontier that needs to be conquered. And finals teach us that. They prep us for the real world out there. No matter how many frontiers there are left to conquer, with our determination, we can work hard in conquering them. After that, it is all sunshine and bird chirps until something comes along. Till then, all we can do is enjoy our long-anticipated freedom!