There’s nothing worse than that period of time after exams, or after you’ve submitted a big assignment, that you’re waiting for your grade to come back. This anxiety is even worse if you feel like you didn’t do well – the waiting is almost as bad as doing the actual thing itself. You find yourself checking CourseLink multiple times a day to make sure your grades weren’t updated yet – so how can you ease this anxiety, even a little bit?
First of all, you have to remind yourself that there’s nothing else you can do. Worrying about your grade will only make you suffer more than you have to – although I know this is a lot easier said than done.
Second, you just have to remind yourself sh*t happens. Sometimes you ’re going to think you did well on an exam and get a 60, sometimes you’ll think you did poorly and get a pleasant surprise. I had two exams this semester that I was almost certain I was going to fail, and I was pleasantly surprised to have passed both of them (I was weirdly comforted by the fact that the class average was 55 – at least I know I wasn’t the only one that struggled!). Meanwhile in this same semester, I got a surprisingly low grade on one of the exams I felt more confident about, because, well, sh*t happens. I’ve all but given up trying to predict my grades in university, especially after a physics test in first year that I was expecting to fail but ended up getting 100% on.
Whether you have to throw yourself into the other assignments you need to get done or take the time to finally relax after finishing with your exams, it’s best to just try to not think about it until you get your actual grades back. Worrying will only make you suffer twice!