![\"blog-stress-DSC_8589\"](\"https:\/\/chekyang.com\/musings\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/blogstressdsc-8589.jpg\" "\\"blog-stress-DSC_8589\\"")
Just a couple of weeks ago, my Software Engineering students were right thick in their last week of final assessments for my subject. When I ran into them while walking to the faculty cafeteria for lunch, they all went into skit routine, tearing their hair, and hollering in mock agony \u201cSTRESS!!!!!\u201d<\/p>\n
Just to clarify; they were a great bunch to teach, and several of them were some of the highest performing students for their cohort in terms of their progressive results so far. We all had a good laugh, and proceeded on our separate ways.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s interesting to reflect back on what my undergraduate days were like in terms of studies some 16-17 years ago. I don\u2019t think I ever actually felt stressed or pressurized in my studies. OK, so I wasn\u2019t so great a student as I\u2019ve already blogged about here<\/a>. I was pulling all nighters running around with my hostel choir, the debating teams, in the student union and JCRCs that I was routinely sleeping at 4:30 am every morning. At 8 am, I\u2019d wake up, and without washing up, run straight for the first of my four hour lecture stretch every morning.<\/p>\n So, essentially, I was too busy with all the non-academic, extra-curricular activities to be worried about results. Oh, I studied when I had to, i.e. usually mugging just a few weeks before the semester exam period, and I got through my first two years with mediocre results. A few B\u2019s, a lot of C\u2019s, and a few D\u2019s.<\/p>\n When I was in my final year in NTU, I was gradually discarding my ECAs (eventually only retaining debating), so I had a lot more time to hit the books. I kept a meticulous study routine, and started revision 4 months before the final exams began. I took all the lecture notes and reference books, summarized them, then re<\/em>-summarized those summaries, and wrote out my own volumes of test paper questions for me to get used to answering questions.<\/p>\n The fruits of my labor? One \u2018A\u2019, several \u2018C\u2019s, and a supplementary paper. I was pretty upset. I\u2019d spent a god awful amount of time of time studying and yet all I got were still average results, with a supp paper to boot.<\/p>\n It was only during my first post-grad that I realized that those studying techniques while I\u2019m certain work for some people, just wouldn\u2019t work for me. So, for my Master degree, I spent a small amount of time casually reading the materials, identifying issues <\/em>as opposed to facts, and spent far more time thinking around <\/em>those issues.<\/p>\n My exam papers in this degree were typically 3 to 5 hour essay papers. As each paper started, I wrote like no tomorrow, routinely hitting 35 page essays in 4 hours each time. The results? Straight distinctions for every one of the degree\u2019s 12 subjects, graduated with distinction, and that opened the door for the Ph.D.<\/p>\n More in the next post!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Just a couple of weeks ago, my Software Engineering students were right thick in their last week of final assessments for my subject. When I ran into them while walking to the faculty cafeteria for lunch, they all went into<\/p>\n