College of Liberal Arts
University of Minnesota
Twin Cities Campus
101 Pleasant St SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455
Kari's Blog
Revising for Examinations
There are 18 days left in this beautiful country of Northern Ireland for me. That is 432 hours or 25,920 minutes or 1,555,200 seconds. How am I going to spend this precious time, you ask?! REVISION!
I have three exams in the next two weeks and I am a revising fool. Revising is what you and I would normally call studying, and the examinations that I am going to take are what we know as finals.
While I’ve been studying here, I took three classes: Modern Irish Society (which isn’t really modern at all), Interpersonal Communications with a lab, and Talk, Interaction and Social Organization (if you can tell me what that is, that would be greatly appreciated…because I still have NO IDEA).
I’ve been blessed with wonderful, understanding professors who take time out of their teaching and research to make sure that I am personally succeeding in their class. I don’t have the heart to tell Catrin, my favorite professor, that I still have no idea what the difference between Pragmatics and Discursive Psychology is, but I have until the 21st May to find out. Wish me luck!
The Learning Resource Center (LRC) or library has been crazy busy since the beginning of last week. Many students have packed themselves a picnic lunch and have camped out at the LRC for the past couple weeks revising and finishing up assignments. I am technically a 2nd year student here (most courses or majors are only three years long), and marks (grades) don’t count for Irish students until their third and final year.
I unfortunately (or as my parents look at it…fortunately) have to do very, very well on my exams in order to get an A or B back home because my credits transfer back as resident credits….so it’s like I never left the U after all! Having that in the back of my head the entire semester has helped motivate me to do well on assignments and papers, but have made me extremely jealous of the other international students who simply have to pass in order for their credits to count.
All in all, I am confident that it will all work out in the end. I’m excited to get done with my finals and be able to do the things I have been meaning to do since I’ve been here and spend the rest of the money that I don’t have to spend!
Good luck to everyone on these last days of school and finals! Even though I HATE finals week, I enjoy looking back on it in just a few weeks time and I always think, ‘it wasn’t as bad as I thought’.
Stay classy and cool, Minneapolis!
