exams...!

During the three days of December 12-14th, we had exams for all 6 of the courses we took this term. The exams were quite an interesting experience and of course a little bit stressful. But where else but Oxford does taking a university exam involve getting dressed up in full academic dress and filing into a huge room in a centuries old building along with all 225 of your classmates to sit through the test? What an amazing place. There are no photos allowed in the Examination Schools, so I can't really show what it was like in there, but you can imagine the huge room with about 40 foot ceilings, huge windows, views of the spires in the city, and portraits of old chancellors of the university covering the walls. It's a pretty intimidating place to take exams, and also a bit distracting as you want to look around instead of focusing on the paper in front of you!

The exams were administered by 'invigilators' who were all exactly what you would picture running exams at Oxford. Old British men who wandered the rows of desks verifying our identity and the like. There were rules which were the same, but yet which had to be read out at each of the six exams we took over the three days. The tradition of the place is amazing. The exams themselves were also interesting, it amazed me that it was expected that we could download an entire term of learning in just and hour or and hour and a half. But I guess that's all part of the process, to see how well you respond under pressure.

After the last exam on Wednesday afternoon, most people in the class made the obligitory trip to a pub called the Turf (still in our sub fusc) for a quick celebratory pint to mark the end of Michaelmas Term. The women in the class have all decided that the men looks quite lovely in their sub fusc (white tie), and that for the women we all just look silly and it must have been what the university decided was an acceptable outcome for allowing women to study at Oxford... 'okay, we will let you in, but you have to wear these really unflattering outfits'... Later in the evening we had an entire club rented out for our class to celebrate the end of the first term. It was quite a party and very fun to be in a place where you knew everyone in the room - good times!!