The first exam period and truthful additions to my CV

In my previous post, I mentioned that I had changed my initial – somewhat skeptical – view of the school immediately after enrolling, and this was 100% confirmed during my exam period. AKCENT truly is not a private college that rich kids (don’t) attend to obtain an easy degree. The exam period for the winter semester amounted to a total of 11 subjects, 13 exams (both oral and written), class papers and sit-in reports. We had three tries per subject and a total of three weeks to tackle it all.

Given the number of exams, I don’t want to go into details about each and every one, so let me simply focus on an easy one, a difficult one and the overall result. My first exam was the written part of the General Didactics exam. I took it one day after the reunion of Open Gate graduates, which I did not attend, instead carefully reviewing my notes and 150 pages of the subject’s compendium. When I came in for the test and saw it, I wanted to cry. I handed my test in after 15 minutes and received 22 out of 22 points immediately. I spent the rest of that afternoon moaning about skipping the reunion and missing my fellow graduates and free beer because of that.

As the number of exams – and the number of my successes and my schoolmates’ failures – grew, however, I realized that the exams were not so easy; the thing is, I was well prepared. As far as learning tactics are concerned, do not expect me to reveal anything ‘pedagogically correct’. After all, these are my honest experiences of real student life. Truth be told, my Open Gate legacy is that of ‘pulling an all-nighter’, which in our language means not doing much all semester long and then making up for it one day or night before. And although I will never disclose this to my future students, these tactics have never failed me.

Even though I successfully tackled 12 exams on the first try and with ‘A’s’ (well, ‘B’s’ in two cases), there has been one big worry all the time that will haunt me until the end of my bachelor’s studies – phonetics. I joked that I would fail my first try only so I have something to write my blog about, and I actually did – I failed by a half-point, which bothers me more than if I had scored zero points. This time, it was not the transcription that failed me (I am quite confident when it comes to that, /ænd ɪts ˈækʧʊəlɪ ˈverɪ ˈɪntrɪstɪŋ/) – instead, it was the theory on where and how vocals are formed and the simple terminology. Eventually, though, I passed the exam when I retried it and closed my first exam period with a total average of 1.2.

In the second part, I would like to briefly mention my ‘leisure’ activities. Following my rather brief stint in O2 Arena, I have finally settled at the Sisters snack bar run by Mrs. Hana Michopulu. There – same as for the majority of my life – I have been spending time tending the bar and working in the kitchen as well as training part-timers in terms of attitude to customers as a manager. This makes for one more item in my CV that I can tick as true. Even though I am really busy at school and at work, I can really say I am a 100% satisfied now. In my next post, I will write about new school subjects, mainly rhetoric, speech therapy, and teaching adults.

I thank all who have read my post to the end. I thank all my friends for support, and as always, my biggest thanks for the biggest support obviously go to THE KELLNER FAMILY FOUNDATION!