A bad case of Examotitis...
Symptoms: Dark circles under the eyes, insomnia, extreme caffeine dependency, memory of a goldfish and tea strainer combined, jitteriness, lack of appetite (or in some cases, extreme hunger), and a bad temper.
Yep. The past few weeks, we have been down with a bad case of examotitis...
Don't you miss those days when you could pelt the boy sitting in front of you in the examination hall with a tiny rolled up millimetre of paper torn from the corner of you question sheet to mouth exaggeratedly to ask for the answer to question 1, part 2)b): What is the difference between the free cash flow model and the something equities model?
Or all the times when you have contemplated writing some key formulae on your hand so you wouldn't forget them?
Or the good old "oops-I-dropped-my-pencil-I-need-to-pick-it-up" trick and then while you are down there might as well ask your neighbour for the answer anyway?
Technically my exams aren't over yet but soon... Soon... This time around our exams were case exams were we had 72 hours and 48 hours to solve them. Piece of cake I thought. We will plenty of time to finish and we can research the answers on that storehouse of useless information - the Internet...It is almost sad how disillusioned I was by the end of it.
The problem with open book exams like these is that the pressure is enormous. You can never tell anyone that you didn't know what the answer was, or that you had a temporary lapse of memory or that you got so nervous you made a careless mistake, or even that you wrote the wrong answer for the wrong question. You have to be perfect and you know it. The thought that comes to your head when you are struggling with it is, "Well, I have all the sources I could possibly want. If I miss anything, it will just be do to my laziness to look for it."
Many things can go wrong in such an exam. There is an immense potential for distraction in such a long period of concentration. After spending 10 hours in a day trying to solve a certain problem of bonus calculation, your attention wanders hopelessly fascinated by any small thing like a gold fish in a new aquarium...Picture yourself sitting there thinking of a goldfish and making funky fish faces with only 4 hours till deadline.
A fun thing that can happen as a result of such intense work is that you feel bonded with your team and a culture emerges with its own symbols and rhetoric. I experienced this for real in our group for our MCS exam. We were stuck trying to think of a solution for a particular aspect of our case. Finally, after 2 hours we had a breakthrough. Group member 1 got so excited that she threw her hands up joyously and exclaimed that group member 2 (the girl who came up with the solution) was the "King". After that epic moment of exultation, it became official that the highest praise we could each other was that of "King"liness.
In the end, all the arguments, pounding fists on the table during arguments, constant nitpicking were all forgotten in favour of proud moments of shining teamwork. And of course, we can't forget the sense of wonderful satisfaction and accomplishment that is part of the package. All in all, a very "King"ly feeling indeed...
