There are many detriments to being a student: debt, loss of sleep, broke-ness, and exams. And, if we had to put these detriments in order of worse to the sucky-of-all-suck, I’m sure the list would run in the order of exams, loss of sleep, broke-ness, then debt. So, with a holiday mist in the air, let’s talk about the least of our problems; exams.
When I was a freshman, I dreaded exams. I knew of their necessary evil, but who on Earth wants to sit down for at least an hour and vomit knowledge through the graphite of a pencil onto a small packet of paper that will be graded and essentially label us as students? That sounded much more angsty than I wanted it to, but you get the picture.
Even worse, imagine failing the exam. You get the same packet back that you had passed in a week ago, full of your markings and scribbles that are in some form of hieroglyphics your professor was somehow able to read and grade. Then you see it, in a nice little red circle on the back of the exam (if your professor mildly cares about hiding your grade from other nosey peepers), D.
Okay great, so not only did I waste beautiful sheets of carbon cyclohexanes while writing all my answers, but now I feel like a waste of space. There is no way in HECK I could have gotten a freaking D on this exam. This cannot be my fault; the professor didn’t teach us this material.
Welcome to the blame game, my friends. For as long as education has been around students have been blaming the teacher and teachers have been blaming the student. It is an inescapable loop that we have been running in for centuries. Seriously, I’m like 42% positive there was some small little knight in the middle ages of Europe who got their jousting exam back and bombed it. He went back to his other little knight friends and just tore his instructor apart. Granted his instructor was probably some real Sir Knight, and if Sir Knight got wind of little knight talking shit, he would have smacked the heck out of little knight.
Where am I going? Oh right, whose fault is it anyways? There are two possible blames for failing an exam; the student and the teacher. I have broken it down into this little chart for you, hopefully, it has cleared everything up.
Let's be clear though, this chart only works on exams. If your whole class failed a pop quiz on the reading you were supposed to do for homework the previous night, your professor is an evil genius and you deserve to suffer the consequences of not reading.
I wish I could take this matter seriously as to solidify your notion that failing an exam is never your fault, but I cannot. The world of education is complicated, annoying, and tough. Teachers are doing the best they can do to provide all their students with the material and knowledge in a manner they think is viable. They expect their students to reciprocate this by putting in time and energy to really understand the material on their own. College is not high school and students often forget they do need to put in work to understand content, it will not be forced down their throat. Start doing work on your system, compress your brains and add heat through coffee (it’s always important to follow the natural laws of physics while studying, dU = dQ – dW).
If you came to this article looking for words of encouragement and for positivity, I have none. You know where you are in your collegiate experience, and the only words I’ll offer in this time of finals is: if you’re being a little bitch about studying because you have no idea what you don’t even know in your classes, start there and freaking own your finals.
