The thing about having only one exam as a method of evaluation.

This might be a long post but this is just a tiny rant. I been keeping this rant in me for some time now. But now that my finals have arrived, I decided to rant this out.

My course only has one exam as a method of evaluation. One exam per subject. No assignments. No presentations. Just one exam.

Some people think, wow, that's amazing. You guys can slack all year long and then study like a month or two before the exams. What an amazingly easy course. 

Obviously, this makes me mad.
Because it's not easy.
And no, you can't slack all year long then study a month or two before the exams. If you do that, you will fail. Trust me.

Having one exam is tough. It truly is.
Our syllabus is long and deep. 
We can spend a whole year studying it and yet, when it comes to the exam day, we aren't quite sure if we are fully prepared.
But the crazy thing, if you asks us when we will ever be prepared? I don't think we ever would be. So we just take it in our stride and go for our exams.

One exam is tough because you have to plan your own studies. You are on your own. No one to tell you to study. No one to tell you what your progress is. No signs of how well you are doing or how bad you are doing. You just have to do it and hope for the best.

If there are no lecturers or no good lecturers, you have to self study. So that means pacing yourself. Setting your own schedule and following it.

Then, there is the stress levels. Because somedays, you will wake up and you will completely overwhelmed. You will feel like there's too much to study and it's too hard. You will feel like you can't do it. 
But somehow, you will have to pull yourself together. 
You have to remember to breathe and just do it.

You will feel alone because it's the subject matter and you.
And if you are lucky, you will have great friends by your side who are studying the same course as you and they will be your support. They will be your reminder that you can carry on.

You will learn about yourself. On how discipline you are. On how you handle your stress levels. 

This course will test you. Stretch you and push you. 

You will ask yourself why you are doing this. And you will remember why you are doing this.

The thing about having only one exam is that there is no one to tell you how you are doing and if what you are doing is the right thing.

And you only have one day to prove that you been studying all year long. One year worth of work put on one day. It's heavy and harsh and unfair.

You can study consistently through out the year. And all it takes is a cold, or a fever or the fact that you let your nerves take over you that it paralyzes you on the exam day. Just like that, your grade will go down the train. 

That's tremendous stress right there.

The exam itself is tremendous stress. You stare at the question paper. Your biggest fear would be that you are unable to answer anything because the examiners decided to go crazy hard that year.

The exam tests on how you handle yourself in tremendous stress. It also tests your time management. 

And then, you leave the exam hall, hoping that what you have done would be enough. 

So no. One exam only is not easy and no you can't slack all year.

But the rewarding thing about my course is, it gives you immense confidence. You know you are the best out there. You know you can stand tall. You know you can take pressure. You know you can handle yourself in insane situation. And you know you are intelligent and worth it. 
Because you did this. And if you can survive this, you can survive anything. 

So this is also a reminder to me that I can do this. I just need to breathe and keep calm.