The exam season is well and truly underway now. Any other term, that would mean crowding outside a gymnasium with hundreds of other students, waiting to sit in an uncomfortable metal chair for 2 to 3 hours, before you were finally free of a class.
Not this term.
Things are online, naturally, given the new standard of social distancing. And while online courses were no big deal in the grand scheme of things, online exams seem slightly stranger.
I will admit, while I haven't had an online final yet, I did have an online test for one of my courses so far. I guess you could call it a good foray into this new format. My conclusion from that experience?
Writing exams online, at home, is weird.
I dragged myself out of bed 15 minutes before, ate breakfast, then wrote an exam while wearing my pyjamas and drinking my coffee. When all was said and done, the midterm went well. But now that finals are here, it's simultaneously easier to prepare for exams (because it feels like there's less stress surrounding them), and harder- sometimes you need a little pressure to help you prepare. I'm optimistic they'll all go well, but in talking to some of my friends, it's obvious that is by no means a universal feeling.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: we're going to get through this. Students, Canadians, humanity as a whole. This is temporary, and life will be normal again. The ordinary glories of waiting in long lines on campus for coffee or desperately searching for an empty table in the library will be again be mainstay fixtures in our lives someday. But no one can deny that it's a weird time to be a student- between only online classes, exclusively online exams, and no real way of socializing with other students face to face, it's hard to think that this is only temporary. We're going to get through it. And hopefully everyone will get through with intact GPAs!
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