I know I am behind on the posting so that means... A MILLION NEW POSTS TODAY!!!
So I figured an appropriate topic for this post would be midterm exams since they are the current topic on my mind at the moment. I figured that as an exchange student the professors might have given us a tad more guidance on the topics of the exams, or the format, or what we should study. But alas no, so for my first parcial that was for ecological anthropology no less I was far from prepared, I had done all of the readings that we were given and had taken notes, and prepared more than I would normally for any exam in the U.S.
I walked into the classroom with a head full of nerves but fairly confidents, and then our professor walks in (late as usual) and she then proceeds to introduce our new professor who will be procturing the exam, the kid looked as if he had just graduated from college, and in fact he had. He is going to be our acting professor since our normal professor would be having a surgery of some sort. So we began the exam after being informed that we would only have an hour and a half to complete the exam rather than the two hours that we had expected. The TA began to read from a sheet of paper our exam questions, he didnt post them on the board or hand out an exam paper, so naturally I began to get a tad more overwhelmed, so I asked one of my friends from the class to see his questions but of course I couldnt read his hand writing, I did the best I could with the questions and began the exam. In the U.S. while taking an exam it is expected for the classroom to be silent, with spaces in between desks to ensure that no cheating will occur, however during this exam all rules seemed to go out the window, people were laughing, talking sitting in groups just having a good ole time.
I decided to just do the best as I could and was able to finish just in time however, one of the other girls from the program, was still on the second essay question when I left, of course that wasnt something to be ashamed of at all seeing how the exam essay questions were so poorly worded and confusing, and not anything we were taught in class I have no idea how I even managed to finish the first question.
The next parcial of doom was in my sociological modern history class. The name alone should have dissuaded me from taking the class but I needed a history credit for the semester. The set up of this exam was going to be a little bit different, we were all put into groups and we had to read a set of four readings, (one of them being 50 pages long) and then we were to have a graded oral discussion based on the selected readings. With only four American students in the class we thought it would be appropriate to be in a goup together, we set on each reading two out of the four readings, so that way in the discussion we would have those two guide the discussion while the other two added in bits here and there based on what they read in the summaries that we had to write on each article. We had the system down solid and we all felt prepared for the oral exam. However, when we got to class and looked at the order of presentation list our group was split so we would be going in pairs...which we had not prepared for.
Peter and Robin were the first group to go, so not only were they not prepared and were totally thrown off base, they also had to be the first group to go for the day. Ari and I waited paciently outside and tried to cram as much information as we could into our heads before going in, while we were waiting Robin runs out of the room frantically to grab our group summaries and tells us its not going well and that she doesnt think they are going to pass. This did absolutely nothing for my nerves, Ari and I continued to cram as best as we could and then it was our turn. Ari and I walked in attempting to humble ourselves and make nice with our professor, which seemed to be working at least a little bit. We sat down in a circle of desks and the exam began, naturally our professor asked us to summarize in detail the 50 page article, which was okay because Ari knew it backwards and forwards, and I knew enough to put in details here and there. From there the exam went pretty smoothly I bullshitted more than I ever have in my life, and we actually passed!!! I had no idea what grade we received but honestly I couldnt have cared less. I was just relieved to have finished.
I will however say that for the first time ever I actually missed taking structured exams like we do in the U.S.
We shall see how long that will last.....
No comments:
Post a Comment