The three phases of the exam session

The life of those who study at the university is not a health walk. Between often incomprehensible lessons, teachers who answer emails only when the planets align, unpaid internships in the name of the vaunted training in the field (because talking about exploitation seemed ugly) and classmates who are keen to let unified networks know that Professor Vattelapesca rejects everyone, almost as if they drew lifeblood from the anguish of others, the academic path is more like an obstacle course. The worst thing is that we are not prepared for what lies ahead, and so we enroll loaded with ambitious dreams and high hopes and then suddenly realize that reality is slightly different from how we had it.
imagined. Mostly, no one warns us about the real monster of the university, in the presence of which the lethal basilisk that roams the dungeons of Hogwarts looks like a puppy to cuddle: the exam session.

During my first exam session, I thought that that sense of disorientation I felt was perfectly normal: in short, if until a few months ago it seemed like a challenge to even study ten pages in view of the question, it was obvious that I did not know where to start to prepare ten thousand different exams, each with its own books, slides, notes and transcriptions, right? Instead – surprise! – it took me a little while to understand that I would never learn how to manage the exam session; indeed, I even found that you can’t really call yourself a * university * student * if you don’t experience it in the same unhealthy way every time, divided into three phases.

PHASE ONE
“This time I’m not fooled” is the phrase with which you welcome each exam session, full of optimism, confidence in your abilities and spirit of organization. You buy highlighters of every color, pens that would be enough to rewrite the entire Divine Comedy by hand and notebooks with cheerful covers, in the unshakable belief that the right stationery is essential to better face the study. You solemnly swear to yourself to eat well and play sports to the cry of “mens sana in corpore sano”. Establish a specific number of pages to read, underline and outline daily, so that you have a couple of weeks to repeat everything aloud and even a few days for a final review in view of the exam. Indeed, you are persuaded that, by scrupulously respecting this plan, you will be able to sleep eight hours a night and rest at the weekend. Yes, everything will go smoothly.

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STEP TWO
Abandoned any illusion of respecting the schedule you had so carefully prepared, the worst moment of the exam session begins: whole months of indolence that might be pleasant, but are instead ruined by a creeping and wasting sense of guilt. Whenever you go out, watch a show or do anything else, you feel like shit because you know very well you should be studying; yet, every time you sit at your desk and open your book, you get distracted on the third line and spend the rest of the afternoon scrolling Instagram or staring out the window blankly. Well, at this point we might as well go out, watch a show or do whatever, right? And the loop starts again.

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STEP THREE
One morning you wake up, take a look at the calendar and you realize that the exams are approaching at full speed, ready to crash into you. So you find yourself in front of a crossroads, that is to try your hand at the sport in which you do best, the jump of the appeal, or groped the impossible. So, if you courageously decide not to wave the white flag, you find yourself facing an intense final sprint to make up for all the lost time: wake up early, breaks reduced to the bone and only for essential needs such as eating and going to the bathroom, smartphone under the key for avoid any distraction and mad and desperate study at the Leopardi. All made possible only thanks to the most powerful energy catalyst of every * university * student: anxiety.

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Eventually, one way or another, the exam session comes to an end. You can breathe a sigh of relief and promise yourself that next time it will be better. Even though we all know * that it won’t.