Until the meltdown: an honest retelling of the learning phase

It takes place year after year in different corners of the world and is endured several times by millions of people: the examination phase. What happens can actually only be retold in the form of a drama. And that is exactly what we do here.

In the beginning was the Word. It reaches us via the subject line in the university’s electronic distribution system and immediately awakens primal fears that we actually thought we had already overcome. The memory of a dark past full of instant ramen noodles and night sweats flashes briefly in our minds. Full of innocence and meanness, it says: exam date.

But the monster, embroiled in a bureaucratic process, has long since lost its threat. We enthusiastically draw up an efficient schedule weeks, even months in advance, that should protect us from any feeling of stress. We are better than our past, because this time everything will be different. This time we will be the winners.

The schedule is made as quickly as it is forgotten. The first euphoria after work lasts for weeks: we feel well prepared. This year we really have everything under control, so why was it so difficult? It’s all very easy!

The lightness only disappears when we wake up at home with a hangover, skip the lecture for the umpteenth time and accidentally open the calendar app instead of Instagram. Shit, March already? What were the exam dates like? They’re coming soon somehow??? Yes, it starts in a few weeks.

The learning phases continue like this, but first a short commercial break:

And now back to the story…

Lightness turns into hysteria, the six a.m. stagger from the club turns into the long night of the libraries. “Where did that damn schedule go?” Long disappeared in the waste paper. “Where are all my notes?” Never made. “How am I supposed to do all this?” With (too) much caffeine.

While we simultaneously cram six research fields together that couldn’t be more different from each other, we fight against a renewed fascination with cleaning, with staring out the window, with the dark depths of the internet. And it slowly dawns on us: we can’t make it this way.

The days don’t want to pass by and are still racing past us. The first exam date is approaching, we are woefully unprepared. In conversations with fellow students, details that we had postponed turn out to be fundamental concepts, without which the material cannot actually be understood.

Why do you even need to learn something like that? We have always known that science is far too theoretical for us. Too far away from reality. Nothing can be done with that. And anyway, the professor always explained it poorly. It’s not our fault, the system failed. Time to make the exit plan for surf instructors in Bali a reality.

But first, let’s get that damn test out of the way. “Mommy didn’t raise a quitter,” it says, tattooed on the inside of our hippocampus, where formulas, theories and arguments can now be found. The first multiple choice question does not activate any neurons, it must be a trick question, A will be correct.

The reactor gets hot, no one notices.

The second question seems easier, but somehow all the answers are correct. It doesn’t matter, B has to fix it, move on.

3.6 X-ray? Not great, not terrible.

Ha, that must be C! An uphill run, let’s go! Another one? Oh well, whatever. Up, up, up! We turn the page and there they are. The worst thing that could have happened to us. The secret of every procrastination enthusiast: open-ended questions.

We wake up – again – face down on the floor of our apartment. What was that? A nightmare? A stroke? The restart of the universe? No, just a little alcohol after the last test. As we all know, misery is the best place to celebrate. What seemed necessary for survival a few hours ago is now dismissed with a ‘pit’. After the horror comes Dadaism. A few weeks later the results follow: The desired 6 has only become a 4. Oh well, we’ll start again next semester. And it wasn’t that bad.

Next time we will be better than our past, because next time everything will be different. Next time we will be the winners.