The Most Wonderful Time of the Year
Through college, grad school, and working at a university, my favorite part of the school year has been the beginnings and the endings; honestly, probably more the end of every semester chasing that last little bit of college and friends around while kind of laughing in the face of exams and final papers/projects. That isn't a feeling limited to post-secondary education for me but with college there was a greater sense of momentum and finality to it all.
That first semester of college, I let things get a bit more out of control than I'm comfortable with. That last sentence is one of the bigger understatements I've made in recent memory. I was running the very real risk of not passing biology, psychology, or statistics that term and needed to pull out all the stops that exam week to make it work on top of other stuff I was facing at the time.
I'm prone to eidetic imagery which is a bit of both a blessing and a curse in terms of memory; I don't always get to choose what memories I get lost in. But that strong memory is how I was able to succeed in things like foreign languages, history, and political science because those things don't really change. STEM subjects like math and science have always been my academic Achilles' heel; math moreso because you're actively constructing instead of reiterating previous terms. I had no idea how to study for statistics over than go over the formulas and practice drills.
Biology is one of the easier sciences for me because of the distinct lack of math and formulas involved in comparison to chemistry and physics which is precisely why I took it to satisfy that natural science general education requirement. Having said that, I remember turning my friend Brian and asking when what I needed on the final to pass the course. He glanced at the grade breakdown I had pulled up and responded quite honestly: "If you get an A on the final exam, you get a C in the course."
"Guess I better study?" I grinned back because the kind of fucked up part is that I was excited by it all on some level. I'm one of those guys that works best with my back up against the wall, that enjoys the thrill of the challenge. Tell me that something is beyond me and I'll break my back still reaching for it. That shows some deep determination, stubbornness, and a certain kind of stupidity.
The freshmen residence hall I lived in had a nice lobby with a fireplace in the back that would be blazing every night as we entered December; it definitely reminded me of House common rooms at Hogwarts. We would gather around that fireplace every night that first semester of finals shooting the shit, cramming, preparing notecards to go over important terms, and rotating choices in music; thanks to my buddy, Johnny, I will never not hear Coldplay's Talk or Frank Zappa's Baby Snakes and not think back to that week. And we would be there all night (even nights where we didn't have finals the next day because that's where all my friends were) up until dawn taking breaks only to smoke cigarettes out front and go to the all-night gas station's convenience store to get cans of Jolt Cola and keep the party going.
That all-night intensity subsided as the college years wore on and we all started to get our own apartments. The last couple years of college, we would start to throw in fun social events to balance out paper writing and studying; I like to work ahead so I'd usually have all my final papers and projects done before finals week even started. It could things as simple as my roommates and I playing laser tag, going bowling with my girlfriend, or trying to ice skate (I am hopelessly terrible on the blades despite my best efforts over the years and the usual dogged persistence).
Where I made up for this more lackadaisical approach was in grad school.
I loved grad school quite a bit and miss it somedays but it really did feel like a second job that you have to pay for it all along the way (Wooo for finally paying off the loans on that beast!). With grad school, there were never any tests per say, just lots and lots of papers citing lots and lots of reading; on average, I would be reading over 300 pages of the driest, most dense articles and books of my entire life on a daily basis. Even working ahead, I would find myself slammed every finals week to get those papers (That would run anywhere from 20-70 pages depending on the course) up to snuff and in on time.
That meant I was living on coffee and just the easiest, blandest shit I could whip up in the kitchen and trudge into work every morning running on 2-3 hours of sleep; fortunately, my boss was VERY understanding. Again, there was a big part of me that liked that challenge and I did very well academically in grad school; thriving on challenge as I ran that higher ed crucible.
A couple years out of grad school, I started working at my old alma mater this time as admin faculty. I've gotten to see how students react to finals now both as a professor and an administrator and it's about the same. Keep in mind, none of the classes I've taught are particularly intense and I certainly don't intend them to be. But there is still that sense of camaraderie and reckless abandon that goes hand-in-hand with finals week; all the parts of college I loved the most. And it still makes me smile.
That first semester of college, I let things get a bit more out of control than I'm comfortable with. That last sentence is one of the bigger understatements I've made in recent memory. I was running the very real risk of not passing biology, psychology, or statistics that term and needed to pull out all the stops that exam week to make it work on top of other stuff I was facing at the time.
I'm prone to eidetic imagery which is a bit of both a blessing and a curse in terms of memory; I don't always get to choose what memories I get lost in. But that strong memory is how I was able to succeed in things like foreign languages, history, and political science because those things don't really change. STEM subjects like math and science have always been my academic Achilles' heel; math moreso because you're actively constructing instead of reiterating previous terms. I had no idea how to study for statistics over than go over the formulas and practice drills.
Biology is one of the easier sciences for me because of the distinct lack of math and formulas involved in comparison to chemistry and physics which is precisely why I took it to satisfy that natural science general education requirement. Having said that, I remember turning my friend Brian and asking when what I needed on the final to pass the course. He glanced at the grade breakdown I had pulled up and responded quite honestly: "If you get an A on the final exam, you get a C in the course."
"Guess I better study?" I grinned back because the kind of fucked up part is that I was excited by it all on some level. I'm one of those guys that works best with my back up against the wall, that enjoys the thrill of the challenge. Tell me that something is beyond me and I'll break my back still reaching for it. That shows some deep determination, stubbornness, and a certain kind of stupidity.
The freshmen residence hall I lived in had a nice lobby with a fireplace in the back that would be blazing every night as we entered December; it definitely reminded me of House common rooms at Hogwarts. We would gather around that fireplace every night that first semester of finals shooting the shit, cramming, preparing notecards to go over important terms, and rotating choices in music; thanks to my buddy, Johnny, I will never not hear Coldplay's Talk or Frank Zappa's Baby Snakes and not think back to that week. And we would be there all night (even nights where we didn't have finals the next day because that's where all my friends were) up until dawn taking breaks only to smoke cigarettes out front and go to the all-night gas station's convenience store to get cans of Jolt Cola and keep the party going.
That all-night intensity subsided as the college years wore on and we all started to get our own apartments. The last couple years of college, we would start to throw in fun social events to balance out paper writing and studying; I like to work ahead so I'd usually have all my final papers and projects done before finals week even started. It could things as simple as my roommates and I playing laser tag, going bowling with my girlfriend, or trying to ice skate (I am hopelessly terrible on the blades despite my best efforts over the years and the usual dogged persistence).
Where I made up for this more lackadaisical approach was in grad school.
I loved grad school quite a bit and miss it somedays but it really did feel like a second job that you have to pay for it all along the way (Wooo for finally paying off the loans on that beast!). With grad school, there were never any tests per say, just lots and lots of papers citing lots and lots of reading; on average, I would be reading over 300 pages of the driest, most dense articles and books of my entire life on a daily basis. Even working ahead, I would find myself slammed every finals week to get those papers (That would run anywhere from 20-70 pages depending on the course) up to snuff and in on time.
That meant I was living on coffee and just the easiest, blandest shit I could whip up in the kitchen and trudge into work every morning running on 2-3 hours of sleep; fortunately, my boss was VERY understanding. Again, there was a big part of me that liked that challenge and I did very well academically in grad school; thriving on challenge as I ran that higher ed crucible.
A couple years out of grad school, I started working at my old alma mater this time as admin faculty. I've gotten to see how students react to finals now both as a professor and an administrator and it's about the same. Keep in mind, none of the classes I've taught are particularly intense and I certainly don't intend them to be. But there is still that sense of camaraderie and reckless abandon that goes hand-in-hand with finals week; all the parts of college I loved the most. And it still makes me smile.
