As the title would suggest, this article is all about exams. At Carnegie Mellon there are definitely too many. I mean who got the idea to test students on difficult material every three weeks. Is this some kind of progress check, or just a very creative way to make students lose sleep? I also quote The Onion and that these tests are very biased towards students who just don't care. It's frankly an outrage.

Okay, all jokes aside, this week was intense. I'm talking 3 problem sets and 3 exams. Modern Regression, Discrete Time Finance, and Econometrics. All of my hardest classes decided it would be a solid time to have midterms. It started off with a Sunday of organizing all my notes to figure out what I would have to start studying first/what I actually had complete notes for. Monday was all about Econometrics, and Tuesday was Discrete Time Finance preparation. I actually got nearly 7 hours of sleep Tuesday night, and went to both my Econometrics and DTF exams well-rested and very confident.

Even Modern Regression on Thursday wasn't so bad. Sure, I probably got a B on the exam cause there was barely enough time to finish, and of course there is a second Data Analysis part that is due next week, but overall, I nailed all three of my exams with good preparation and planning.

So enough about me, lets talk about exams in general.

Everyone takes them, whether its for work, or school, or college. They generally aren't the most exciting thing to pencil into your calendar, but I would argue that exams are actually good.

How often can you sit down and really realize how much you have learned in a class. After walking out of each of those exams it occurred to me how much I had learned in the past 6 weeks. I never realized we got through 4 chapters of Econometrics, and believe me I was kicking myself for not starting to review earlier, but after I finished, it felt really good to be done and really understand all that material.

Between all the other activities and things happening at Carnegie Mellon its easy to forget you are actually here to get an education. I'm sure it happens to a lot of you guys in your activities as well. So maybe instead of thinking about exams as this huge burden, think of it as a great way to really understand everything you know. Maybe this new positive mindset will help you score higher, but even if you don't quite get the score you want, at least you know how much you are learning.

Anyway, all this sentimental stuff aside, I'm done for the week, WHATUPPPP, and its time to celebrate. I'll be running the Shadyside 5K this Saturday, and tonight I'm sure some exciting plans will develop.

Here's to a stellar weekend, and another round of exams in 3 weeks that I hope leave me feeling as accomplished as I feel now!