Oh, Don't You Know...

(If you read the title in a British-Colombian Canadian accent, you read my mind and read correctly)

...Don't you know how final exams work?

Because you should.

If you don't, now you will.

I went out last night for a glass of wine with some friends (they are Argentine). I started to tell them about my first final exam that I took that morning: cumulative, human physiology; 3 familiar professors, 1 I did not know, all sitting across the 1 foot long desk, right in front of me ≈ interrogation session 4 vs. 1.

And guess who won?

They did.

Know why?

Because I apparently was ignorant of the fact that this oral exam (which I was aware it was) was more of a presentation of a theme I knew best (had I prepared for that) and a game to not let the professors get a word in edge-wise. This proves I know what I'm talking about, I dominated the subject, and I am prepared to move on.

My misconception/interpretation/perception was that it would be back to back drilling: what's this, what's that, explain this, connect that. And it was. Only because I let them talk. And they drilled me on everything I didn't know. (That's an exaggeration, but they asked me things we had never talked about and only if I memorized page 92423792387983784900399 paragraph 4837389 and graphs 1-83747 and all their numbers, would I be able to answer.) Because I let them talk. I studied. For a week. But I didn't prepare a discourse to defend and I didn't play the game.

I passed, but I feel like I lost. It was an unfair fight, but that's just because I was born and raised in the USA.

My friends explained the tactic to successfully knocking one of these down: study everything, prepare something well, and basically word vomit (but make it coherent). Don't let the professors talk and by God, don't ever be silent. They feed off your silence and pose questions to dig you further into silence. If you don't know something, ask for clarification for the question... aka what precisely are they looking for. In their answer, you might find a key to yours.

My glass of wine was generous; probably the equivalent of one and one-half glasses. To abate my ire, this was necessary.

Study hard, study well; play smart: play the game.

#LatinAmericanEducation #ForeignStudents #WeAreBabies #HELPusOUT #DAMNIT #sorryGPA #GoodbyeHarvard

Angela