7 Things I’ve Learned During Exam Season That Have Nothing To Do With What What’s Gonna Come Up On Them

Here's some things I've learned during that period of frantic panic and caffeine consumption known as exam season, having gone through three bouts of it with my next period of it coming up in May. These aren't anything to do with my course material, rather they are little life lessons from the various things that I've experienced during them.

1: Listicles get clicks. This isn’t even me trying to be all meta with this article, I’ve clicked onto so many things which have turned out to be unfulfilling, watched so many end of year review list videos on YouTube, all due to this desire to just not have to engage with the foreboding behemoth comprised of powerpoints and pdf files staring me in the face.

2: Caffeine has a dark side to it. All those coffees, those cans of edge, those cans of red bull should you have the money to afford it, they may well keep you awake, but there is a crash and it will come. It may come midway through typing where you feel a wave of tiredness will hit but you can remedy that with another hit of caffeine. Harder to mend though, is the crash that gets you in the morning. The crash that comes when you’ve had a good eight hours of sleep, but when that alarm goes off you just throw it at the wall and doze off for another couple of hours. The crash that means your body is seemingly locked in position when you wake up, your hands shuddering as you assemble that coffee, almost causing the mug to slip right from your hands and shatter. Watch that caffeine intake folks.

3: There is a strange creative switch that comes on whenever you’re stressed and bored and really not into studying. It came last year when I was churning out articles at a decent rate, it came when I made a meme page when I had an essay looming over me, and while it was dulled somewhat this time around due to really needing to study, I did make a “I wish I was at home” meme of myself, using far too many tools in MS Paint for my liking.

4: It’ll help you out a lot if you have some material for studying put together before the exams start. Be that lecture notes, a core textbook with highlighted parts, readings that are posted throughout the semester read and with notes made, or even just having all the slides and pdfs in a folder on your laptop, it’ll save a lot of time. Keep this in mind for next semester, anything you can do to bring those stress levels down a notch is a good thing.

5: Panic group chats, a staple of college life, a lifesaver at times but also a major source of frustration. They’re generally easier to deal with when they’re for an essay, there isn’t endless speculation over what topics could arise and far less people in fear of possibly failing it. While you can’t be mad at people for feeling that way, seeing a lot of people say they’re probably gonna fail is gonna send your stress levels up a bit, even if you’ve studied quite a bit for it. People can also get quite pushy when it comes to seeking help or notes, the feeling they’re saying something nasty when you can’t be of much assistance is a troubling one to have. Stick to your friends if you’re gonna make one of those chats, it’s easier to divide up topics to make notes for should you do this.

6: Exam season can become quite a pricy time if you’re not careful. All those cups of coffee, cans of edge from the vending machine, printed out notes? They’ll add up quickly. If you’re like me and your smoking habit gets worse due to stress that’s another expense. The late night takeaways you’d avoid in term time suddenly get a lot more appealing when you’re dead after a hard study session and the thought of putting together something from the remnants of your cupboard seems like too much physical exertion. Watch those wallets folks, you’ll want a bit of cash leftover to do something nice after the exams, or just to buy enough cans to forget the whole ordeal.

7: Stress is something we’ve all come to expect during exam season. We’ve all had it before tests, the Christmas and summer exams in secondary school, the Junior and Leaving Cert and college exams. We’ve been told to expect it by teachers, lecturers, tutors, parents, peers, there’s an innumerable number of articles out there on how to cope with it. One aspect that isn’t really touched on quite as much is the loneliness that goes along with it, the isolation that comes from being shut off from society cramming information into your head. It’s not as common as stress; many people have little groups of friends in the same course they can study with and indeed chill out with between exams, a structure to preserve sanity during a trying time. Indeed there is a good chance you’ll see people, but the conversations will generally be brief, scattered bursts of frustration and complaint that unify us as a collective student body, yet with the connection not really being present. It’s an understandable isolation, everyone is generally flat-out at work, yet it’s still not a fun place to be in. I’d be lying if I said I was in that spot 100% of the time during exam season, yet that spectre of loneliness did rear its head a good bit. Try and alleviate that as much as you can, meet people for coffee or something when you’re free and feeling up to being around people. Exams can really do a number on your mental health, and constantly feeling isolated and cut off from people isn’t gonna help that out.