Sike! Well, firstly let me tell you the love Korean people have towards an Iced Americano. There’s an old saying (not that old actually) here in South Korea that is “Even if I freeze to death – Iced Americano”. Whenever Koreans go to a cafe, 99.9% of them would order Iced Americano – any season, any day, any time of the day (they even drink it at night!). So, I thought I would be the same as them during the mid-term week although I’m not a coffee person. However, I successfully resisted this force – by drinking tea instead… I still could not sleep at night…but who needs sleep during mid-term?! Although I did not drink coffee, I still went to the cafe every day last week, here is the overview of how many times I went to the cafe to study last week!
As a student whose entire university years were mostly taken by COVID, I only had one in-person exam which was three years ago when I was still a freshman, so I was pretty nervous and stressed about the offline closed book exams here at SKKU. Here are some tips for taking offline university exams for those who have not taken such exams for a long time:
- Familiarize Yourself with the Exam Format and Rules
- Prepare Necessary Materials and Equipment (please check what kind of pen is allowed).
- Make an outline at the very start.
- Check the learning outcomes for every course and review class notes and materials based on that.
- Make revision notes and flashcards about what matter the most to help better memorise since the exam is not open book anymore.
(I also heard that some Korean students would stay at the library all night long to study and also sleep there for a few hours, and when the morning classes come, they would straightly go to the lecture room from the library. My Korean friend told me one of the reasons is that some students would just enjoy their lives and care little about their studies, and will only study hard during the mid-term or final weeks. Not recommended!)
By the way, the mid-term week is usually the cherry blossom season here in Seoul, but due to the early warmness this year, the cherry blossom has already faded by the time we started to have exams. Does this also indicate our results will be the same outcome as the cherry blossom?! Just kidding, just kidding (trust your effort!) but please check out the pictures I took~
The bright side of the mid-term week is that everyone is here to support you. Here in South Korea, universities would have mid-term/final supportive events such as giving out snacks and soft drinks for students.
The events are usually held by each faculty which would usually last a couple of days to make sure every student is taken care of. We even had an idol group (Blitzers) coming to our school last week giving out free coffees to be supportive! Unfortunately, I was having a lecture at that time so I was unable to go 🙁 The supports go outside of the university as well, where the cafe would extend their opening time to midnight for students who want to study there!
All in all, I made it through the mid-term week and it was less torturing than I expected. I would not worry too much about the results as long as I put my effort into it – it is what it is, you know. Good luck to everyone taking their mid-term exams!