Just like everything else, summer exams need to adjust to the new environment in which we are all living.  Given the current situation, summer exams are now going to be virtual – an adjustment many students were unsure about.  But now that we know how they’re going to work they don’t seem quite as daunting.

For the Social Policy Department, most exams that were meant to be taken in the summer term are going to be online in the form of short answer essay questions.  Each course has allocated a certain period of time to complete each exam (most of mine are over the period of one week) and most professors specify the expected word count for each response. It was also helpful that many professors included how much time they’d expect us to spend on each exam – in other words, we don’t have to spend an entire week responding to the prompts, even though that is how much time was given.

At first, I was unsure of this, in part I’m sure just due to the uncertainty of it – who would’ve imagined a WFH final exam style? To prepare, I’m doing what I would have done to prepare for a normal in-person exam.  Collecting all of my notes and putting them together into one big word document. I’m also going over the feedback from formative assignments, to make sure I take that feedback into our summative essays and final exam.

For any student worried about online exams, (now or in the future) try not to stress too much! Professors are really understanding of the circumstances and want you to do well.  Study as if you were going in to take the exam in-person, and you will do fine!