Reflection on exam season

My final year friends told me that the second year is the hardest one, at least when you are studying. I think they are right. I have never studied that much in my life. I used to arrive early to campus and left around 10-11 pm. Of course, I had many breaks; studied with friends and chilled for a bit. However, I have never felt so stressed before. Maybe it is the pressure as half of our degree depends on year 2. We have 3 core modules of 30 CATS each so it is a lot of revision, and a lot to do.

I think I learnt a lot during this period; not just academic stuff, but also improved time management plus identifying which study techniques work best for me. I realised I am very productive quite early in the morning and then around 8 pm onwards. Two different extremes but somehow I made it work!

Something that really helped me and motivated me a lot to study was having a “study group”, studying with friends. Some friends and I compared past papers answers the day before every exam. This is something that I strongly recommend as it helped you to improve your approach to each question. Also, listening to other points of view and solutions to each problem open your mind to different ways of thinking plus it allows you to share and explain your ideas.

I remember that one of the most memorable study sessions was the day before the microeconomics exam. I was never really confident with micro and any module in general (but with micro was worse). I studied so much for micro and ended up completely understanding every single topic. That day I explained to a friend a question. I was so confident in my answer and it was the right one! We were a group around 5 and one of my male friends (probably the third guy in my whole life that I have ever asked for help in something related to academic stuff) said I was right after solving the question. Right after that, I was like: OMG, I did it!

I believe that this is one of the things that really matter. It is about a before and an after; it is about how much we grow and learn during the process. It is different for everyone and no one said it was easy, but it’s fully rewarding!

I am not the kind of person who will be comparing answers after the exam or who will be talking a lot about it. I prefer to say: “It’s done”. because you can’t change what you have just done. You just have to look forward and do better the next one and the next one.

So far I can say that I am done with exams, I am done with year 2 and finally, I am getting a rewarding rest at Amsterdam Schipol Airport while I am waiting for my flight connection to Lima.