Exams are difficult for everyone, regardless of faculty, year, or schedule. Here are 7 hard truths to make you feel a little bit better…or at least feel some solidarity to get you through.
1. Everyone has an exams uniform, whether it’s sweats, leggings, your UBC hoodie…some of us even take to wearing an exam hat to hide our greasy hair. Exams often inspire students to join the league of the great unwashed, so don’t get too close, lest we start to smell our hard work.
2. Healthy diets go out the window for many of us. For some, this means donuts, Dominoes, or metallically delicious canned pasta – all the foods your mama and health teachers warned you about. When time is of the essence, the best kind of food is the fast kind. In fact, I think I just saw a fleet of delivery cars roll up to Irving…
3. Sleeping habits become distinctly non-habitual. The night owls amongst us can be seen pulling long hours in the library, the rings around their eyes becoming distinctly more raccoon-like as exams wear on. Meanwhile, the stress sleepers can be found passed out in all variety of places: desks, chairs, tables, floors, they don’t discriminate. But we all know that once exams finish, we will all become bed zombies, unwaking.
4. Procrastination becomes almost an art form during this time. Some may intentionally start a lengthy TV series for unlimited time suck, while others take the creative approach of unabashed internet loitering. Few of us have actually reached the end of the internet in our journeys to do anything other than study, but if anyone has come close, it was probably a university student with a huge final the next day.
5. Exams can make people a touch…touchy. Stress puts everyone on edge, so don’t be surprised when you see someone snap over something really small, like loud breathing, or a bag being unpacked too loudly. Should you become the prey of such an individual, raise you hands up in surrender, lower your gaze to the ground and back away slowly so that they know you are not a threat. Do not attempt to speak to them – they are likely beyond reason.
6. Just like any other tragedy, a person suffering from exams wants others to sympathize with their plight. If trying to get sympathy from someone not in university, feel free to over exaggerate how horrible exams are – we all do it, and someone who hasn’t lived through this hell will just tell you you’re being dramatic. Maybe you are, but either way, someone telling you to get over it doesn’t make you feel better, but pulling a Moaning Myrtle might.
7. You will get through this. Exams suck, but you will come out the other side and reassume your identity as a functioning human being again. Stay strong, reader. I believe in you.