Well, the first semester is well and truly done and dusted. Time to box up those memories and lessons learned and file them away in the recesses of the mind in preparation for round two. In the meantime, here’s what’s been occupying my mind – and my time – since I walked out of that last exam room.
1. Making good on a promise to myself
One of many reasons to go to the gym! Gorgeous #views on the way home from your pre-dinner workout.
In my little introduction-type paragraph for this blog, I mentioned that I looked forward to taking advantage of the free gym/Rec Centre membership that comes along with living in student accommodation. Did I want to do that? Yes. Did I actually do that? Not a chance. I kept putting it off and putting it off and putting it off until one night after my European Studies exam my friend Jordan caught me and asked if I wanted to go to the gym with her. And because I always have a surplus of adrenaline following an exam, I was like, “uh, okay, why not?!” and had to then go and unearth my previously neglected my active wear (cut to this video). But – let me tell you, team – I had a great time! The facilities serve whatever purpose you’re after – machines, weights, stretching rooms, rock climbing – and people tend to keep to themselves so there’s nothing overly intimidating about it. I’m glad I went that first night because I’ve been back a few times since and now I’ll definitely be making regular trips for the rest of the year. (There are loads of different group classes as well which a few of us girls from the ninth floor are looking into!)
2. Starting afresh
Been taking the ferry to Auckland from my grandparents’ house on the coast recently – definitely less traffic!
A semester of university is very much an undertaking. You end up accumulating mountains of papers and notes, food wrappers, flyers for O Week events, and sometimes what you’ll find is best in order to start afresh for the next semester is a good old deep clean of your room. This sounds boring and tedious as anything, but when my grandmother and I trekked back to O’Rorke for the day this past week, I actually found the whole thing so therapeutic. Not only did we dispose of rubbish and all kinds of miscellaneous junk, we pretty much sprayed-and-wiped the whole room, getting rid of any dust on – post especially above – shelves, and basically restored the room to a completely fresh state. (It might’ve even been cleaner than when I moved in, dare I say it.)
A shot of some of the aftermath – potentially leading into a post on O’Rorke coming up!
It was a huge job – we also went through my wardrobe and all my drawers and everything – but I feel so much better for having done it, especially with so much time to spare before I’m back in there for the long haul. My room is ready for me to return and get straight down to business. (You won’t believe how good that feels.)
3. Occasions
To celebrate finishing exams, Jordan and Alex and I treated ourselves to dinner at Kushi! The lighting was great for ambience but not for blogging, so here’s the best shot I could get – gyoza [heart eyes emoji]
I traded out my go-to eggs bene for french toast at Café Manly – and it did not disappoint!
I’ve also been enjoying a break from the regimented menu of Flame Tree catering and diving back into home-cooked (and sometimes restaurant-prepared) meals. It’s funny not having to follow a specific timetable of when to eat as well, but I’ve managed to not annihilate the entire fridge so I’m pretty pleased with myself in that respect.
As I said, the holidays have allowed for some much-needed family gatherings – and for those distant relatives, being at uni is always a good icebreaker!
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I’m loving having pretty much free rein over everything I do at the moment, but I’m also really eager to back in the game! I’ve got my first two official marks back, and I’m very pleased with them, so now I just want to hurry into the second semester of classes. I’ve followed my gut and I’m only studying what I find stimulating and what I’m passionate about, which I think helps immensely with motivation. Let’s get this show on the road!
(In the meantime I’ve been writing and making and creating stuff of my own, which keeps me occupied and the fire in my belly lit, but, like, I’ve got a week of lectures on Pride and Prejudice waiting for me when uni starts up again, and ya girl kinda can’t wait.)
How did you study for your exams?
What I did for each exam really depended on the paper, but in general I set myself up in the O’Rorke study room and went ham there. (Quite a few late nights, but lots of productivity.)
I went through practice questions from previous exams and thought out how I’d answer them, testing myself to see whether or not I actually could answer them at all. I went through all my notes and either read them loads of times or rewrote them, sometimes linking together different observations that could work as an answer to an essay question (in that I grouped topics and planned out how I’d answer a question on them).
I’d definitely say that the best thing I did was going through the previous exams – teachers bang on and on about that in high school, but at university it can be a massive help as loads of lecturers don’t want to continuously come up with new questions (as in, one of my classes had the exact same question four years in a row – my exam included). So check those out!
Familiarise yourself with everything you’ll need, which isn’t necessarily every single piece of information you’ve taken in – many uni classes specify what the exam topics will be/give you a chance to pick from different material. For example, we were given a list of topics that each of our Art History essays (three in total) could be written on, so I chose three that I knew really well, and had three as my backups in case the questions didn’t fit the ones I preferred. For the most part, what I’ve found is that knowing several things in absolute detail can serve you much better than knowing a little bit about everything.
Oh! And! “Study smart, not hard.” Figure out techniques that work for you and use them – it doesn’t matter if your friends are spending hours and hours in the study room each night; the amount of time spent revising isn’t a competition. If you’ve got a good method, you won’t need to spend so long on it.