Its been a tough week, full of studying, late nights, and not much fun if I’m being honest. But the most important thing is that ITS OVER. We all managed to survive our first finals here at UCI and I wanted to share some of my more memorable moments with you, the readers. Overall I had only two finals that I had to study for, one being the Environmental Engineering 60 class and the other being Math 2A. So I guess I was lucky since I could leave UCI and go home by Wednesday.
Studying for the Environmental Engineering final was essentially deciphering the PowerPoint presentations of our professor as well as reading over our notes. The PowerPoint presentations seemed to be more geared towards helping the professor remember what topics she needed to cover in class rather than for the students to use as study material. At this point I should also mention that there was no study guide but the final was not cumulative, meaning that it would cover material that was from the second final onward. When I heard that the final was not cumulative I felt so relieved because the amount of information I thought I would have to cover just became halved if not less than half. Either way, I was pretty confident going into the final but when the test came out, some of the questions made me question my understanding of English. Some questions were worded so badly that if someone didn’t read it over at least 5 times they would be confused as to what the question would be asking. That actually happened to my friend because he never heard the term “canary in the coal mine” before. The question was essentially asking what species of animal was the “canary in the coal mine for DDT. For those who don’t know when someone calls something a canary in the coal mine they mean “Something or someone who, due to sensitivity to his, her, or its surroundings, acts as an indicator and early warning of possible adverse conditions or danger.” So the species that indicated that DDT was bad for the environment was actually the Bald Eagle and I chose that but my friend was unfortunate enough to never hear the idiom “canary in the coal mine” in his entire life so he told me he probably got that one wrong. Regardless, the test was not the most fun thing to do because of the wording of the questions, so I guess be prepared for that?
Math 2A was a whole different story as the math department actually gave out sample finals for the students to prepare. That being said, when it came time to take the final, the entire thing seemed to be on special cases like log and e^x. So the practice finals actually helped for around 20% of the final. I finished my test with about 5 minutes left on the clock and when I went to turn in my test, I looked around and couldn’t spot the other people I came in with so I assumed that I took too long. As I was going back to my seat to grab my stuff the proctor said that he needed everyone to sit down for the last 5 minutes of the test, even if you were finished. So there I was, exhausted beyond what’s humanly capable and really forward to sleeping my stress away, but forced to wait for the last five minutes in the room. I couldn’t access my phone or talk so I just sat there staring at the second count down for 5 minutes. I gotta say it was similar to those movies where you see the kid just staring at the clock waiting for the bell to ring, just multiply that by a millennium and a half. Regardless, I eventually made my way out and managed to catch up with my friends to go grab some well-deserved ramen at the University Town Center mall.
I gotta say, finals in college is definitely not like the ones in high school. The ones in high school you could pass by just cramming the night before, but in college if you try and do that I can tell you right now, you are gonna have a bad time because there so much material to cover that it would take at least a couple days to fully remember the information. After finals though, you feel like you worked hard enough to deserve the break. That’s where I’m at right now, at home, relaxing, reminiscing about finals preparing for that day that every kid loves, Christmas.
Merry Christmas Readers!
-Josh
