How You Made It Through Finals

[GAA_Admin]

The following responses were posted on the GAA's older message board system and have been migrated to this new system in this post.

Please feel free to post your comments below.


elizabeth norton 1978
old fort, nc

I was astonished and highly amused to see
so many people relate "my" recurring dream
about final exams: skipping class all semester and suddenly remembering or being told I have a final exam in that subject on
that day. One person went on to relate details that were almost exactly like my dreams: forgetting I even had the class, having to find a classroom around the Quad and waking up in a cold sweat. The only major difference in mine & her dreams is that I have been having them for about 10 years longer than she has and I too expect that I will have them the rest of my life!
I have only ever talked to one other person
that has had a similar dream and that was
my cousin that graduated from NC State.
Evidently this isn't just a phenomenon reserved for UNC grads.

libbie norton
old fort




Posted: Thursday, November 20, 2008

Joy Starnes 1996
Monroe, NC

Does anyone out there dream that they skipped class the entire semester and now it's exam day??? For some reason, that's the recurring dream I keep facing...




Posted: Friday, December 07, 2007

Harry Dewey 1941
Barnwell & Laurens, South Carolina

I hated staying up late to study for finals, so I would nearly always go to bed about 9 pm in my room (#3 Pettigrew), and set the alarm for 2 am. Then I'd walk to Bingham Hall, which was always unlocked, find an empty classroom, and study till exam time. It worked (I DID graduate).
--Harry



Posted: Friday, December 07, 2007

russell lukey 1953
walnut grove,ca

relaxed with a few beers at the CURVE INN.


Posted: Thursday, December 06, 2007

Jamie D Suttenfield 1997

Lots of coffee & cigarettes!!



Posted: Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Lynn Peithman Stock 1984
Charlotte, NC

When I was at Carolina, I lived in Granville South and during exams they would offer "zoo hour" for an hour or two in the early evening. It was a time when residents did not have to be quiet for studying, which of course meant that it was an excuse to be louder than usual. At the time I thought it was goofy, but looking back I can appreciate the chance to blow off steam and be relaxed and a bit crazy in a controlled way if you wanted.



Posted: Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Eunice Doman Myers 1971
Lexington, NC

I was a young mother during the last 2 years of undergrad; then went straight through for an MA and PhD, even in summer sessions. I will be forever grateful to my parents and my in-laws who took turns taking care of our daughter during final exam week. She stayed with them in Lexington, so I could devote full time to my studies. And my husband bought enought TV dinners for the whole week so I didn't have to cook. I could not have made it without them! I finished my PhD (1977) when our daughter had just turned 7.



Posted: Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Kim Frederick Zeugner 1983
Cary, NC

I never could pull an all-nighter, I would gather all of my notes, books, etc and study until sleepy, then take short naps, wake up and start again. I also treated myself to eating out once during every exam period before a big history exam. I would go to Mama Dips and sit in a corner with all my materials and eat a vegetable plate. The staff would then keep me supplied with biscuits and iced tea for the next couple of hours. It was easy to study under those conditions! By the way, everyone I know has that nightmare about exams, I find it happens to me when I have a deadline or am stressed about something - I'm back in college and wake in a cold sweat. My son is getting ready for his first exams right now - his nightmares will begin soon!



Posted: Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Billy T. Faires 1994
Chattanooga, TN

It was a dark and stormy night in Hinton James. And cold, what with it being December 1990 'n' all. With less than 12 hours before two lengthy papers were due on two professors' desks, it was obvious an all-nighter was in the works for this freshman geek eager to have the grades promised to his parents when they agreed to let him attend that expensive out-of-state institution.

In the hopes of proactively combating 3 a.m. fatigue, I committed the caffeine equivalent of binge drinking by mixing two scoops of instant coffee into my 2-liter bottle of JOLT Cola. For the record, instant coffee doesn't mix very well with cold carbonated beverages. Also for the record, the JOLT/NESCAFE mixture tasted much like I imagine engine sludge might.

By 2 a.m., I was shaking so badly I couldn't type. Not that it mattered, because my brain was moving too erratically and randomly to keep leashed, and I found myself dancing to crappy 80s hair metal in a desperate attempt to return to some level of acceptable energetic normalcy.

It merely served as a reminder that youth is a time when the first instinct is to kill flies with a bazooka when a mere flyswatter would do the trick.



Posted: Tuesday, December 04, 2007

James A. Rogerson 1965
Edenton, NC

I pulled all-nighters for all of my exams and I drank a lot of coffee. For history exams I made timelines;for geography exams I made maps;for political science exams I made administrative charts;for language exams I studied hard and prayed. For all of the others the memories are still bad and still fresh.




Posted: Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Dawn Livengood Widger 1987
Littleton, CO

I remember staying up late (but never too late . . . because I have to have my zzzs)and studying. But, the incredible thing to me is the fact that over 20 years after I've graduated, I still wake up at night with my heart racing. I wake up from a dream thinking I've got to go take a final exam and I haven't studied or attended class all semester. (I had evidently forgotten I even had the class!) I walk into the exam . . . (I'm always going into a classroom around the Quad) with no clue about the subject. It's very unnerving and I always ask myself "What does this mean?" I guess I'll dream this the rest of my life!



Posted: Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Donna Leah Murray Gregory 1970
Mebane, NC

Finals! Such fun to think about and not have to do! I always made a careful plan for time-use, gathered all my materials, and followed my plan. Unfortunately, my plan only managed my time, and not my quality learning and recall. I tried to east wisely and walk, reduce stress. Ended up overeating junk food, and having nightmares about lack of recall. Drew a complete blank on experimental psych. exam. I ran to Dr. Long's office, and explained. What a wonderful teacher! He spent about 15 min. just talking with me, helping me calm down. And then he only graded the part that I finished. I don't remember the grade, but I will never forget the man!



Posted: Tuesday, December 04, 2007

Lucy Millinder 1974
Fayetteville, NC

My boyfriend stayed up all night studying for his Organic Chemistry exam, drinking black coffee non-stop to help him stay awake. The next day during the exam, he kept having to run to the bathroom with diarrhea, thus flunking his exam.

[ehelms]

I graduated in Dec '73, and my latest 'exam nightmare' occurred just last week...I must be channeling stress from my two kids who are both facing crunch time. In my dreams, I, too, suddenly realize I haven't been to class and the exam's today! Unfortunately, a very similar experience actually jerked me awake my freshman year. Lesson learned: don't cut class (too often) or you'll be doomed to roam the brick pathways of the Quad searching...searching...searching...

[kldavisunc]

... of exams and no sleep for days. Tried diet pills and coffee freshman year, and the results were okay except for the crash after the last exam spring semester. I mean the bottom fell out: I was sure that I had failed my last exam because I crashed near the end, while reading it through, and suddenly nothing I had written made any sense. I gave up, turned it in, returned to Granville East, called my mother and told her I had failed the course (turns out I hadn't) and slept for 24 hours straight. After that, still didn't sleep much, but I stuck to water and coffee. When you're young, you can do almost anything that you will yourself to do. Ya' know?

kldavis, '71

[tarheel73]

Exams were actually not mandatory the spring semester of my freshman year. We had the option of taking exams if we thought it might raise our final grade for that class. If not, you could just skip the exam altogether. There were quite a few students that year who decided on the latter approach. That is probably the way exams should be every semester. Needless to say that was the easiest exam period of the 8 semesters I was at Carolina.

Mike Stonnell
Concord
UNC '73