The Last Friday before Exams
Assuming that if any post-graduate student is reading this blog around this time of the year is procrastinating gives me a slight relief as that is exactly what I am also doing by writing it. That is of course unless they are all already at the ‘graduate pub’- George.
Exams begin next week for most Government Department Masters students. Students are scattered around the ‘campus’ with a selection of places to study: from the Shaw library for those who like to work with ‘natural light’ and home comfort, all the way to the Lincoln’s Inn for those who enjoy working with nature per se. I have also moved away from the “bee-hive” -as some like to call it- i.e the Library for a change, to the NAB, where everything is high-tech and where coffee breaks are no longer an excuse to go out as you can walk around with a mug of freshly brewed tea of your own with just the right amount of milk.
Revision period allows one to evaluate the entire year at once. Going through the syllabus and selecting strategically the courses to study and those that overlap makes all the links in various aspect of different courses much clearer. It is perhaps the one chance in the year where you really get to evaluate your knowledge- and obviously prepare for the exam. This is probably the highest virtue of the British ‘individualistic’ system in comparison to the Continental or the North American model; it values individual opinion and originality. This is not to say it should be equated with individual study, in fact quite the opposite. As every student has their own view on the issues studied it becomes even more useful to organise group study sessions to share varying views on course material and help out. You are encouraged to be involved in group study as sharing work/ideas allows one to be more competitive and provides encouragement to do even better. This could perhaps be called a form of peer-pressure, but in a positive, motivational sense. Reminding me then of the group study factsheets I have to prepare for tomorrow’s session, before making my way to the George. I guess I will have to continue about the virtues of studying at a later stage.
