I took a final for a class I’m not in

Finals week – the week we all know as hell week. The countless hours of studying, endless cups of coffee and sleepless nights add up and by the end of the week we’re all glad it’s over.

Finals vary from major to major. Communications majors have more hands on final projects and articles to write. Any pre-med major or Biology major probably spent hours studying for an exam that could determine their GPA.

So since I clearly had nothing better to do/wanted to torture myself, I decided to take a final in a class I’m not in.

When I prepared myself to take the PSYCH 100 final to see the experience I noticed the problems were much more hands on. Unlike some of my gen eds where I memorize terms and concepts I noticed while I took this exam I had to apply concepts.

I noticed when I took this exam that I was basically learning backwards. Instead of learning terms and concepts in class, I had to apply what I knew from other classes to try and make sense of the material in front of me.

At one point I was taking material I learned from my Criminology classes and my History classes and try to think how I could apply it to Psychology.

This method did help me with one question where the concepts were similar but most of the time, I was pulling answers from loose ends.

Lesson one from trying to take a final that isn’t yours: don’t try and use other subjects, for the most part it doesn’t help and your brain will only hurt more.

Trust me, finals are nerve-wracking on their own.

Once I was halfway through this exam, I started to get bored because I couldn’t relate to this material. In order to keep myself entertained, I had to imagine myself as a psychologist. Some of the questions required me to diagnose people and find out their psychological conditions.

It was an interesting experience to say the least and after about five questions I decided to abandon this method of thinking.

Finally, I gave up and started guessing random letters. Usually when I take a final I lose motivation halfway through the exam.

However, I have to remind myself that those exams count for part of my grade and I need to pay attention… this unfortunately was not the case

(Usually this includes a three minute pep talk about how great school is and how much my grade depends on this exam. After that the last minute is usually about how I can reward myself after if I finish this exam. We all deserve a post-final reward anyway right?)

Although it’s hard to pep-talk yourself through an exam that doesn’t matter. So naturally I reverted back to high school habits and took this test like I did in my Academic Decathlon club – I picked my favorite letter for each question and then handed in the exam.

Even though this wasn’t my final and it wouldn’t count at all, I did feel some sense of accomplishment. I was one of the first people to hand in my final since I barely knew anything on it. I left the room feeling free and happy to close out finals week. Now I can enjoy my holiday and I don’t have to worry about grades until 2016.