Year 2, Term 3 – The Exam Term

I had my normal luggage plus my clarinet and two Irish flutes. The two Irish flutes were in my bag and since they are metal, they looked rather dangerous in the airport luggage scanner. Naturally, I was asked to open the bag and show the flutes. When the airport security guys saw them, they became curious and asked me to play something for them. So I played for them – to prove that those two dangerously looking metal rods are not lethal weapons. I convinced them.

I came to Britain two weeks earlier, so that I could study in peace and quiet for the exams – as you may know, it is not possible to study very efficiently when at home, there is always something to distract you. It was definitely worth it (now, that I know the results of my exams) and it refreshed my brain before the beginning of the term. My strategy was to do as many past exam papers as possible, as that is one of the most powerful ways how to prepare for the exams. This way not only one gets used to the format and ways the exam papers are set, but one also gets a good feedback on what is considered to be important in the course and what is not.

Then the term started. We had only four subject this term, going on for four weeks, as it was the exam term. The subjects were Artificial Intelligence (very interesting and enjoyable subject taught by a guy who looks like a pirate), Complexity Theory (theoretical subject, basically about the problem of P vs NP), Concepts in Programming Languages (this subject was like a tour in a museum – it was about old programming languages and concepts introduced in each of them) and a rather non-traditional Computer Science subject: Economics, Law and Ethics (I guess here the title is sufficient).

Since the lectures were from 11 to 13 o'clock, me and my two Slovakian friends thought, that it is a waste of time to sleep long, get up at 10 and then go to the lectures. Hence we met every morning at 8 and wrote one past exam paper in exam-like conditions. It had couple of advantages compared to doing it on my own:

1) Because there was the three of us, we were forced not to “cheat” – you know it, when you are doing a past exam paper, you tend to peak into the notes “only for this one little thing” and then you don't get a real feedback on what you know and what you don't.
2) Because there was the three of us, it was much harder not to come, hence we were more tough on ourselves.
3) Because there was the three of us, we were able to go over the solutions in the afternoon. I guess, this was the most valuable part, as one of the most efficient ways to learn something is to explain it or consult it with the others.

Looking back, we have spent more than 200 hours with the past exam papers, but it was definitely worth it! The exams came after this unbelievably quickly and the most matching sentence to describe them is a quotation from the Hunger Games (reading which I have spent couple of nights at the beginning of the term): “May the odds be ever in your favor”.

This was the academical part, concerning my “other life”, there was also a lot of events. One of them was my participation in a psychological (and computer science) study concerning lying and its detection using an eye tracker. It was interesting experience and I warmly recommend participating in psychological studies, it is very mind-stimulating and fun (and you make some money too). Also, I started coding my own Java graphics library and I hope I will be able to finish that project over the summer, as I had to hold myself back during the entire exam term from doing it.

Now a well-deserved summer is ahead, in fact, in a few minutes I am leaving for a math camp which I will be organizing. So let the summer begin...