I know this sounds insane, but I love exam season. Before you roll your eyes, let me acknowledge the obvious: exam season is the most stressful time of year. The fall semester is especially cruel with the chaos nestled right into holiday season. Unless you get to the library right at the doors, you won’t get a seat and will be subjected to the humiliation walk ritual. Hi everyone, here I am, lazy and late, while you are already grinding away! Every conversation is a frantic rant about some niche topic in the slides you didn’t even know existed, and before you dive into it, you Google if four energy drinks are too much in 12 hours.
That being said, it makes absolutely no sense that exam season has become my favourite time of the year, right?
During the regular semester, life moves at a million miles an hour. There is always another party, event, or somewhere to be. But during exam season, something shifts. Everything slows down. For the first time all semester, the world outside your house gets quieter. People stop going out. Everyone is suddenly on the same schedule: wake up, study, break, study, break, study, sleep, repeat. The big event to look forward to is a movie night to unwind before bed, or a collective Uber Eats order for the study room.
My housemates and I are currently finishing off our Star Wars binge, and our next conquest will be Stranger Things season 5 and Wicked part 2. I can’t wait to be snuggled up in our unofficial assigned seats on the L couch, or squished in the car on the way to the theatre.
Some of my favourite moments from university have been the 3am walks home from the library with friends, with our obnoxious laughter echoing off the fresh snow-lined streets. The “okay, guys, lock in for another hour, then we have a yap break”. Exam season turns my housemates into my little emotional support team. We all rotate through tiny breakdowns, celebrate small victories, and collectively procrastinate in ways that would make our professors concerned.
Our study break shenanigans feel like massive missions. Case in point, we once drove to downtown in the freezing rain to pick up 8 different personally curated pizzas to sneak them into the lecture hall we snagged for the next few hours of studying. Or the 20-minute break Wii Golf tournament that turned into a 2-hour affair.
These are the little moments that make university feel like home. That’s why I secretly love exam season. Not because I enjoy studying (I definitely don’t!), but because it gives me something the rest of the semester rarely does. It turns my housemates into the people I share my whole day with, not just the leftovers of my schedule. This time reminds me that my campus and my run-down ancient uni-house, which is probably full of mold, is also the home I share with people who have become my best friends in the world.