Exams are coming

The first important exam

I did not have a lot of time to miss my Dad and his girlfriend because only some days after they left I would have the first big exam in France. The course would already end after 5 sessions which was something I didn't know from Germany, but actually it was not bad. So there wouldn't be all the exams in one week as it usually is but it's more divided between the months.

But anyway, I was quite scared because I didn't know how exams here would be like, how much the professor would expect and if I would understand at least the questions. The last lecture was in the week when my Dad was there and in the end the professor told us a bit what it might be like and that international students were allowed to use a French dictionary during the test. That was already good, because even if I was making large efforts in learning new, technical words, it was still difficult for me and there were a lot of words I didn't know yet. She also told us that there would be a multiple-choice-part and a case study to analyze which scared me a bit, because case studies usually have a lot of text. But the notes I had from the course were actually quite good because of the Powerpoint presentations the professor did, so I thought I could do it. The other German student was a bit more scared but we didn't have a choice - we had to take the exam.

So the next week, after 5 days of intensive learning (I didn't want to learn while my Dad was there so it was a bit shorter) and some books from the library I didn't even open because I had no time left, the day of the exam was there. I was excited, held my notes tight in my hands while we were waiting for her to enter the room (which was extremely full for the first time). We asked each other questions but that made us even more insecure. I forced myself to think positive as I always do before exams, because I knew that I had learned a lot and that the possibility that I would not know anything was quite small.

The system of exams in France is obviously a bit different, because each one of the maybe 120 people in the room had to come to the front and pick up 3 sheets of paper. That was a big chaos and took a lot of time. Time during which I became even more excited. But finally, the exam started. I read through all the questions and was happy that I could almost understand everything. I filled out the sheets, trying to do as few mistakes in the language as possible, and read through everything several times. As in Germany I had finished some time before time was over which surprised me, because I had thought that I wouldn't be able to finish because of the language problem. But as I had really learned a lot it was okay and slowly I started to relax again.

Finally, the time was over and we could leave the room. I took the bus together with the other German girl and we talked about the questions. We didn't agree so much, but well, answering a case study isn't a black or white thing so we just had to wait until the end of the semester for the final results.

Proud of having finished one course already

The most positive aspect about the exam was that we already had finished one course! We wouldn't have the three hours course at monday anymore what meant that I would only have 1, 5 hours each monday. Sounded quite good!

In the evening I met my French friend to go running a bit and have a coffee afterwards. Then I fell into bed and slept very, very good.

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