It's always a huge relief to finish exams. My exams for this semester were dragged out over two weeks so exam period seemed longer than ever. I definitely favour spread out exams over back to back exams (which I experienced in second year). Overall, I felt that I was able to manage my time for exam study efficiently this semester. I found that doing little things like dancing to my favourite beats right before an exam helps relieve my pre-exam stress.
The easiest way to reflect on this semester's exams is probably chronologically.
That brings Semester 1, 2013 to a close. I have work lined up everyday (except weekends) in the holidays. Most engineering internship applications open during the break so I will probably be looking into those as well. All the best to my peers who are also applying for jobs.
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The easiest way to reflect on this semester's exams is probably chronologically.
- CVEN3201: Geotechnics was by far the most interesting subject to study this semester. The main reason for this was being able to relate to real life situations such as observing loads being applied on retaining walls. Doing past papers from 2008-2012 really aided my understanding in the subject. Preparations for this exam was quite straightforward since the course was so well-designed with sufficient amount of resources. No worked solutions (only final answer) for the past papers were not provided which I found beneficial as I was forced to test my understanding. My final exam consisted of 4 questions (the previous papers had 5). I was pretty bummed out that they missed out on covering the Lateral Earth Pressure topic as that would have been easy marks for me. Question 2 addressed the Cone Penetration Test (CPT) which we only covered briefly in the course. The consensus from my cohort was that it took us by surprise. Apart from that, the rest of the paper were very similar to the past papers.
- CVEN3501: Water Resources was quite straightforward, 50% theory, 50% calculations. Not too confident for the multiple choice section but all in all, a decent test.
- CVEN2301: Each question in Mechanics of Solids took quite a bit of time to complete. No difficult concepts to wrap my head around except getting through the calculations. Having to use my brain for three hour straight really drained my brain juice. By the end of the test, I was exhausted.
- CVEN3401: By the time, my Transport exam came around, I was glad that it was almost over. Pretty straightforward exam. The second traffic question was deceiving as the Network system looked quite complicated and I thought I would have to spend a good half hour on it but upon closer inspection, it was actually the easiest test in the paper and it only took 5 minutes to complete. Relief! Someone forgot to supply us a graph for us to complete the last question so it was cancelled. The marks were then distributed within the pavement design section. Slightly irritated that happened as I had went through a very similar question the night before and was quite capable of obtaining the marks for that question.
That brings Semester 1, 2013 to a close. I have work lined up everyday (except weekends) in the holidays. Most engineering internship applications open during the break so I will probably be looking into those as well. All the best to my peers who are also applying for jobs.