âSugar-coated Expectationsâ
The preliminary examination week was surely a week full of âfirstsâ for me, especially now that I am a college studentâwhich hasnât really sunk into my head until then. During that week, I got to experience what students always despise during examsâtime pressure. It wasnât my first time to experience it, though, because high school, of course, sure wouldnât have passed if it had never let me face time pressure. Requirements were piled, schedules were jam-packed, and teachers didnât give any consideration for deadlines. Due to these circumstances, I then used to think that high school was giving me the same level of pressure as to what college students are currently receiving, or so that was what people told me. Â However, even if the majority of the people whom I asked college tips from often said that time pressure allows improvement in fast analyzations and computations, I strongly do not believe that it hasnât worked out for me just yet. The first twoâalmost threeâmonths of college has already thrown me with more tasks than the usual weight of workload that I can handle, but I have noticed that the mistakes Iâve done in the processes of accomplishing such are significantly taking me higher than my former perspectives when it comes to studying. A few of the aforementioned âfirstsâ that I experienced are the following:
It was my first time to submit my answer sheet filled out with the product of not listening to the instructions given. I am particularly referring to our only major subject which is Pharmacy 1.
It was my first time to take exams with an answer sheet (scantron) that was to be checked by a machine, and so I thought that shading my chosen answer out of the choices provided was a big deal. Although it really is a big of a deal (because otherwise, the machine might consider your answer wrong if you shaded it inappropriately), I still spent most of my time slowly shading the rectangles properly rather than going through the questions and answering them correctly as fast as I can. Some of my high school quizzes and exams were also answered on answer sheets that contained circles that were to be shaded, and our teachers would often âscareâ us that shading one circle incorrectly would affect all the other items that followed. But eventually, those quizzes and exams were only checked âmanuallyâ and were sometimes even biased by teachers who had their so-called âfavorite studentsâ.
It was only after the preliminary examination week had I realized that being competitive with my test results and quiz scores and comparing them with what my blockmates got are unbelievably not worth it at all.
      And so the following week, we received our respective examination results during our scheduled classes of all our subjects. To my surprise, I got higher scores than what I expected to get. (Note, though: I got served with what I deserved in Pharmacy 1.) One would usually be glad to have received high grades, but to me, they arenât enough. After all, grades donât really define who you are as a person, but they sure will carry you to a position where the qualifications are usually grades and all other academic performances.
      Last Tuesday, July 28, 2015, I picked up one of the most memorable quotations that I know I will hold on to for a long time, and that is what Sir Ricky, our adviser, said right after he discussed the correct answers of our Biology 13 Laboratory preliminary examination: âDonât just memorize; also remember to analyze.â After all, how else are we, students, going to learn if all we do is master lengthy piles of notes without learning them off by heart? If this is what we continue to do, then we are a hundred percent guaranteed with a great loss of knowledge that could have been stored in our brains, which can also be applied to lifeâs greater problems and lessons in the near future.
      I have stated that I cannot and will never truly succeed by just memorizing, but this alone is not what I am intending to type in order to share to you, dear reader/s. I am also open to talking about the times wherein I was the one embarrassed and personally confronted with my mistakes in front of my classmates/blockmates in order for them to learn from it. Indeed, âThe experience of others is the best teacher.â However, I am slowly but surely getting to the point where I will no longer have to worry about what my failure can make other people think wrongly of me every time I am corrected. Because what better way is there for me to learn and to grow from my mistakes?
      The last thing that that I have realized after the preliminary examinations is accepting defeat. You might be thinking that failure and defeat are just referring to one same thing, but for me, they arenât. They are distinguished with great differences. Failure, in my opinion, is when you disappoint others (especially your parents) with what you got served, while defeat is when you disappoint yourself with the outcome of how you performed. Itâs not a question of understanding if you canât seem to get what I mean, because itâs only my opinion and thatâs how I perceive it.
      To sum it all up, college exams are not what I used to think of them when I was still in high school. These realizations, I believe, have certainly changed the way that I will take the examinations that await me in the months to come. And if I were to be asked for tips, specifically for future college freshmen, Iâd say, firmly and without a doubt, âExpect the unexpected.â
