First Exam Season at ETH: A Collective Hysteria

Title

Dear readers, I am happy to welcome you back to this blog. I have been waiting a long time to write once again, but I promised myself I would only post after the exams. I have come to think of my writing as a way of managing my mental state. You see, I do not like complaining to others about how sht my life is because, objectively speaking, it really is *not. I am mostly healthy, mostly able to feed myself, and mostly socially successful as a young person. However, I am still human, and as part of my nature, I get used to how good I am doing and want to strive for more. When more does not come, I get frustrated. But telling somebody just feels unfair because I usually do not think through what I want to say. Writing posts gives me more time to fully assess the situation I am in. As I usually write over multiple days, I have time to reflect on my situation as a whole. More often than not, it helps me realize that things are actually going quite alright. On top of that, it has been really heartwarming to talk to you guys (whoever reads my blog). Apart from a lot of positive feedback, it has many times started conversations in which we cut directly to the topic. I hope to repeat this beautiful cycle, so let me comment on my last set of exams.

My Results

Without digging unnecessarily deeply into the numerical results that I have obtained, I would like to note that I have completed 34 ECTS credit points this semester, which consisted of one 4 ECTS course based on coursework only and 30 ECTS from courses with exams between January 22 and 30. As of now, I have officially received all credits from these courses. Now, let me comment on how these exams have challenged me.

Exams

I completed my bachelor’s in the Netherlands, where the semester is split into two parts, each with its own teaching period and exam season. The coursework is based on collaboration and quick feedback cycles. Students also submit a lot of homework, which counts as a major part of the performance assessment (usually ~30-40%).

In stark contrast to the Netherlands, at ETH, most of the weight in performance assessment is based on the final exam. For the four courses in which I had an exam, each final exam accounted for 100% of the grade, with the possibility of earning a 5% boost through coursework submitted during the semester. This distribution was very different from what I was used to and took some time to adjust to.

Additionally, one cannot select courses based on how exams are scheduled because they are assigned after everyone has enrolled. This is quite annoying since if you are not taking the most common combinations of subjects, the algorithm can assign you all your exams in a very tight schedule. Finally, most exams do not have scheduled reattempts, meaning that a second attempt is usually only possible during next year’s session.

Most importantly, however, is the difference in expectations regarding how much you are expected to know. While in the Netherlands, to get full points, you would need perfect knowledge of the subject and flawless execution, here at ETH, you can achieve the best mark even without answering all questions correctly. To pass, you might need to know less than half of the material. The exams are generally designed to be impossible to solve perfectly, and mistakes are expected. The current exam is usually very different from previous years, so whereas in my bachelor’s, I would study to beat the exam, here I am humbled by the material itself. Thankfully, results are graded on a curve, so even after some terrifying experiences, the results were quite satisfying.

Exam Season

I also want to reflect on the exam period as a whole. ETH reserves a period for studying before the exams, giving students a month with no scheduled classes (and even two months in summer), allowing them to focus solely on revision. This was a challenging time for me, but one I actually look back on fondly. Each day, I would wake up, go to the gym, then head to the library. Later, my classmates and I would grab lunch at Mensa. Then, it was back to the library to study until my brain was fried. Go home, sleep, and repeat. It sounds terrible, but there was something beautiful about it. I found my rhythm and worked through the material at a reasonable pace. I learned to be satisfied without feedback on my performance, simply existing as a happy observer in the realm of knowledge.

Here, I have to say thank you to all the people who were there with me along the way. I am very sure I would not have been able to handle it on my own. I think we all struggled a lot, but doing it together made it much easier. At the same time, however, I think we made it harder for each other as well. We were all pretty scared, and we kept telling each other how impossible it is to pass all the challenging courses. As you can guess, in the end it didn’t go so badly. However, as I am (mostly) among first-year master students, we all had little experience with how it goes. We just reinforced the fear in each other, it was a collective hysteria of some sorts. With the first results being announced, we have all calmed down signficantly. I think next exam season will not be easier by any means, but will certainly be a lot more relaxed.

Ambitions

To be honest, I am very happy I made it through this session alive. As I noted in previous blog posts, I lacked any feedback on whether I was following the curriculum properly, which made things really difficult for me. Right now, I feel very satisfied. My grades are far from perfect, but I am happy with what I got. Moving to Zürich has certainly challenged me enough—no need to be a perfectionist about it. However, that cannot be said for everyone around me.

One thing I had not realized before coming here is that about half of my classmates want to pursue a PhD afterward. Hence, they care deeply about their grades, as they are a major part of their application. Moreover, most people here were at the top of their class during their bachelor’s and are not ready to let go of their academic dominance. So, for them, getting a 5/6 is not satisfying but rather a disappointment.

Personally, I never thought about a PhD, though the environment I am in is slowly changing my opinion. I went from not considering it at all to suddenly seeing it as a real possibility, though it is certainly not my primary goal.

With that being said, just like the Kondi class I attended yesterday (an extreme version of body-pump, typical for Zürich): before I could catch my breath, it was time to go again. Last week, the new semester started, and I already have material to catch up on. With a bit less than 3/4 of the way to go, now is the time to keep up the pace.