Finals_and_stuff.html
At the end of the Polish high school equivalent (liceum) there’s, like, a final exams sorta thing (matura). Your results on these exams are basically all that matters when it comes to getting into universities and stuff. I’ve got those coming up in like, a week from now, though they’re spread out throughout the month.
There are 3 subjects which are obligatory to take: math, Polish and English. Then you can also take up to 5 (I think?) additional subjects, which can include advanced versions of those basic ones. For me, that’d be advanced math, “bilingual” English (so, like, really advanced level), and IT.
Now, I’m obviously not worried about either of the English exams. The basic one is so easy that I honestly expect to get 100% on it. Besides a written part it has an oral exam part, but I’m not worried at all about that either. The bilingual-level English might actually pose a challenge to me, admittedly. I’m, obviously, pretty good at English, but that exam can actually have vocabulary I might not know. (Quiz for the reader! 8 letter word, meaning “a large board in a public place, used to display advertisements.”) However, none of the universities I’d be planning to go to really take the results of that into account anyway (for the courses I’d choose, anyway), so I’m kinda just taking it to see how well I can do on it, or for fun, or something. Regular advanced-level English (which you can also take instead) seemed a bit too easy :p
Now, the Polish exam I’m somewhat worried about. Once again, the result doesn’t really matter for me much, as it’s not taken into account for any of the courses I’d be going for, but because it is one of the basic exams, you actually need at least 30% on it to pass the final exams in general. It has a written and oral exam part as well. Now, both of those are, like, literature and text analysis. This means they test knowledge of the required reading and… Man, do I not remember those. I mean, I’ve not even read all of it admittedly. But it’s, like, difficult for me to actually remember this stuff. Like, for all the other tests and school and whatnot, I had to just memorize a relatively small amount of stuff, and promptly forget it a week later. But now I have to have knowledge of, like, 20-something books. Honestly, I’ve spent barely any time preparing for this, not just because of how booring that sounds, but also because it feels like anything I could really do reasonably at this point would just be… Futile. Like, I could read synopses of books or something, maybe, but I feel like I wouldn’t remember much from that anyway. I’m also kinda worried about the oral exam part, well, for two reasons. Most of the score on the written exam is an essay, which has to reference one of the books from the required reading as well as any other book. But you can choose which one it is. On the oral exam, you get two questions, and one of those will always be based on a random book from the required reading. And, gosh, it’s so easy to just get an unlucky draw on that. The second part is just, like, the stress, you know? You only get 15 minutes to prepare on that one, and then you also have to speak in front of an examiner. I kinda froze up just talking in front of the class sometimes, but this? I’m kinda scared I’d just straight up not be able to say anything, even if I knew what to say.
IT - I don’t really have to worry about this one too much. It’s a combination of stuff, programming, spreadsheet stuff, databases… I don’t really struggle with any of it in the slightest. I might have to spend a bit in preparation for the programming, ‘cause I’m gonna be writing in Python (even tho we spent most of the time at school writing in C++) but, really, I should be able to get at least 90% on it easily. Though… At the same time I do somewhat worry about it, because this one is actually taken into account for the university courses that I’d want to take. Cause, well, yeah, obviously I’m going for some kind of Computer Science thing. I’ll get back to this later though.
The basic math exam is generally, well, pretty basic. We actually get a 20-something page booklet which has basically all of the formulas we may need, and Eris, that’s such a life-saver. I’d struggle without it, to be honest, even on the basic exam. Like, I know vaguely most of the formulas, cause obviously I’ve used them a lot, but I absolutely don’t remember all of the trigonometric formulas and the like. Still… Doing some practice exams at home, I very often make mistakes just by, like, misreading the question or something. And the stress of an actual exam isn’t going to help me focus in the slightest. Still, I should probably be able to get at least 90% on it, maybe even 100%. Now, the advanced math exam… That one I’m actually kinda worried about. I mean, ok, I should probably be able to get… At least 70% on it? But the thing is (I’ll get back to this in more detail later), the Computer Science courses usually care quite a lot about the score you got on the advanced math exam, even more than the IT one sometimes. And 70% might not really be enough. The worst part is that I usually know how to solve the questions. But I just make either calculation errors somewhere or just dumb mistakes (including, again, misreading the question). I’ve been doing some practice exams and to be honest, they haven’t been going that great. I mean, I got like 90% on today’s, but on yesterday’s I think I only got like 70-something.
Now… What after these exams? Well, I’ll surely be going to university, and pretty much surely for Computer Science. Honestly, I haven’t really looked into this or thought about it that much until like… A few weeks ago or so, so I’ve only really got like 2 universities I’ve been thinking of. One is a university which is I think, like, 7th on the ranking in terms of CS, it’s in a city which is like a 15-minute car drive away from my home but… It’d take me an hour to get there by bus, and also I’d have to take two buses to get there. This is kinda… Daunting for me. I mean, so far my commute to school took only like 30-40 minutes or so. Honestly, I’d be fine with spending an hour on the bus, mostly I just dislike the fact that I’d have to take 2 buses…
The other one I’ve been thinking of is in one of the bigger cities in Poland. It’s I think 2nd on the ranking (I’m saying “the” ranking, but I guess it’s just “a” ranking) in term of CS, and also a bunch of my classmates are planning to go there. However… It’s way too far for me to actually drive there from my home everyday. So I’d have to move to the city for the time I’m studying there. Now, I, or, well, my parents can totally afford that. However… The thought of actually living on my own, well, without my parents is… Kinda scary? I mean, very scary, really. Honestly, I’m kinda not sure I’d really be able to, like, live on my own like that. But at the same time it’s kinda… Enticing? I’m kinda excited about the thought of going to this university, and I don’t think it’s just because of how highly ranked it is. I guess scary things can be exciting, but I never imagined myself actually being positively excited instead of… Negatively scared about something like this. However… With it being such a prestigious, one could say, university, it’s obviously really difficult to get into. This is where my aforementioned worries about IT and Math come in. Really, I’d probably need at least 90% on both to really have a chance of getting in. Or, assuming I get like 100% on the basic math one and 100% on the IT one, 80% on the Math one might just be enough. And like… That’s not going to be easy. And like, this fact kinda puts additional stress on me and, well, I don’t think I’m the “works-well-under-stress” type of person. I think I should still be able to get into the university closer to my city even if I don’t get the best results but… I dunno, like I said, the thought of going to that other one, moving to another city… I guess also the fact that some of my classmates are going there is kinda reassuring to me as well.
Umm, so yeah, I guess this felt like something worth making a blog post about. Not really the usual style but eh :p
Also I didn’t proofread this at all sorry