Back to business

The advent of the new year, 2013, sees the opportunity to evaluate and refresh every aspect of your life, which for me includes assessing my application to all things academic. I think I worked fairly hard before the Christmas break (turning slightly nocturnal in the process!), but realistically it’s common knowledge that January is crunch time for the whole semester, when the truly large marks tend to come into play.

So what better way to get back into the swing of things, having had a wonderfully refreshing (although not overly productive!) break, and having just made the long haul back from the North-West, than to throw myself back into the academic side of University this week with revision lectures for the upcoming exams?

Yes, unfortunately it’s that time of year again when students find themselves compulsively panicking at every waking moment, regardless of whether they’re at the books or relaxing without them. Time spent taking breaks, although important (in moderation!), increasingly begins to feel like time wasted, and productivity is high on the agenda of the masses, particularly the huge crowds that fill the campus’ Hartley Library on a daily basis – although chronic procrastination can sometimes find a way of striking as well! Christmas and memories of the holiday season were as soon formed as they are now temporarily cast aside, and the world of academia goes into overdrive as everyone seeks to beat the rapidly-encroaching deadlines instilled by the presence of exams.

So as I lay awake at night struggling to recall the order of Scheme closure evaluation or the exact inner workings of the FAT file system, I know that it really is time to go into a period of lockdown: now, more than ever, work is the priority.

It goes without saying that exam time is difficult, irrespective of the level at which candidates are taking them. I always found that, during my A Levels, I longed to be revising the content of my GCSEs again because it seemed so little, and so simple, in comparison, and now I’m at University I’m finding myself reminiscing about the good old A Level days instead!

Looking at the system objectively, however, I’d argue that this is all relative perspective: at the time of taking them, every exam seemed, to me, to be insurmountable, but in the end I made it through GCSEs, A Levels and First Year. And, ultimately, learning for them provided a firm basis from which future topics I’d study would go on to be expanded and, overall, my knowledge broadened, so putting in the time making notes, which I can still refer to, and combing through textbooks was certainly worth it.

For example, in my subject, Software Engineering (which follows the same course path as Computer Science for the initial two years), early modules were focused on building strong mathematical foundations, particularly in areas such as Discrete Mathematics (covering areas such as logic and set theory) and Formal Methods (mathematically proving the correctness of computer code), which are now proving invaluable as I can take knowledge of their principles for granted when applying them to the more difficult Theory of Computation module.

So even though the temptation remained to settle for a passing mark in first year, I’m glad that I went the extra mile in producing fairly comprehensive resource notes for helping me this time around. Hopefully I’ll be able to do the same for next year, although with time quickly slipping away before my first exam, it may be a case of consolidating revision during the Easter and Summer breaks instead!

Everyone has a different method of revision, but ultimately one huge advantage that life at University holds over studying elsewhere is the social context in which you undertake it. As ever with life around the University of Southampton, the great sense of community manifests itself in a mutual acknowledgment of one another’s need to learn. This can help to drive you through difficult topics as friends and coursemates are generally more than happy to share their understanding, an invaluable resource when you need to translate a sea of Greek letters and functions into plain ol’ English!

Plus, I’ve always found that the collective presence of everyone working is inspirational, as it reminds me to remain focused, despite the temptations of social networks and television! When I and my housemates catch one another procrastinating, we do our best to get each another back on track, and when we feel like we’ve all done a satisfactory day’s work, we put on a film to relieve some of the stress of the day.

So to everybody knee-deep (or making early strides) in the stormy seas of revision, take solace in the knowledge that exams will soon be over, and that everyone else is going through the same. And remember, there’s always the period of post-exam celebration to look forward to!

After the welcome break that was the Christmas holidays, it’s back to business with a bang: good luck to everybody with exams this month!

Robin