I plop onto my seat in Hodson 110, flipping the light gray foldable desk over and laying my favorite mechanical pencil and eraser on top, catching the pencil with my index finger as it threatened to roll off the edge of the table. There are 30 minutes until the first ProbStats midterm.
I’ve spent a large chunk of the past few days studying for this exam – working through review problems (though, a more accurate description would be erasing my work and scribbling over the lightened graphite), timing myself as I did backtests and even spending a couple of hours fixated on a counting proof I still haven’t figured out (even after a TA explained it, I wasn’t sure if I fully understood). Slumped back into my seat in the exam hall with one leg crossed over the other, I filtered out the doubts from my mind and gave myself the pep-talk I do before every exam: “I can do this, I know the material.” Moments from the past few days began to flood my mind, not the times when I was studying alone and plowing through questions, but memories of reviewing the concepts and completing problems with friends.
Studying for exams is daunting. In high school, the idea of doing homework with friends didn’t make a lot of sense; I thought that I should be able to do all of my homework by myself, as that was the only way I would truly understand it. Besides, I would be doing the tests by myself. In college, I began to adopt the same mindset, and hole myself either in my dorm or in a reading room, flipping through packets of problems.
But slowly, I started forming study groups with classmates. Once, I spent at least half an hour wrapping my head around a Bernoulli distribution problem; I scribbled down all the related concepts but the solution wasn’t clicking into place. Finally accepting that I may not be able to figure this one out, I asked my friend for a hint, and her intuitive explanation made me realize what concept I was missing. Usually, when I’m stuck on a problem, I continue mulling over it, applying different approaches – too stubborn to move on or ask for help. Yet, knowing when to pause and ask for help is a strength, not a weakness – and has often helped me build a deeper understanding of the course material.
For a long time, I saw “studying with friends” as a way to get through the work – a temporary support system that would surely fade when the class concluded. Recently, I’ve begun to see it as something more. Strangely enough, some of my treasured memories from this semester have been studying with friends after our ProbStats discussion section. We would explain concepts to each other, holding slightly different ways of viewing the same idea. We would disagree on homework answers, and try to convince each other of the right one, gasping when we realized that the problem really was that simple. Eventually, the conversation would spiral into anything but ProbStats – a well-needed break.
My days of studying shouldn’t just be reduced to my score. Rather, they should be defined by the process of preparation – those little moments of satisfaction when concepts clicked, or of using the Pomodoro method with my friends to stay focused on problems. When I look back at these times, I realize that studying wasn’t just a bearable chore that had to be fulfilled; it was an experience that could be enjoyed and savored.
Right before that ProbStats exam, I shifted in my seat a little, running through my cheatsheet to make sure I didn’t miss a formula or a challenging problem we covered in class. I felt some anxiety rush over me and the familiar fear of, Oh what if I can’t solve a problem? I remembered when my friend made the comment that, “Exams are just problems that need to be solved. They come and go.” We solve problems every day — some more interesting than others — and exams are no different.
Sareena Naganand is a sophomore from Piscataway, New Jersey majoring in Biomedical Engineering. Her column, “The Daily Chai,“ is about finding happiness in simple, insignificant moments: the kind that makes us smile, wrapping around us like the warmth that comes from drinking a cup of tea.
