Class Social
To celebrate the semester and all that we’ve learned, my Glaciers and Human Impact class had a class social on May 2. We met up in Copenhagen at Cock’s & Cows, a burger restaurant, for dinner. The name refers to the fact the restaurant is known for its burgers and cocktails. You could choose between a classic burger and a vegetarian burger (I actually chose the classic burger since, as mentioned in an earlier blog post, I wanted to eat meat while abroad to fully engage with all aspects of Danish culture). The burger came with a side of delicious curly fries and tasty dipping sauce. The dinner was yummy, and I enjoyed having the chance to catch up with friends one last time. It was fun to have this last-minute social event before the onset of final exams week and everyone became busy with studying and packing to leave.
Final Exam
The final exam for my Glaciers and Human Impact class was an oral exam. I won’t lie—I hate oral exams. It’s just a personal preference sort of thing. I enjoy writing and turning in papers because I can simply find time throughout my week to research, write, revise, and perfect my paper until I turn it in at my leisure before the final deadline. In contrast, with an oral exam you need to prepare extensively and manage to remember all the important information at the time you go in for the exam. You have to perform well at the particular moment of your oral exam and hope that you receive one of the questions you feel the most comfortable with. It’s a different way of being evaluated. I can’t complain that much though since I had a big final paper for two of my other classes.
Anyway, the way the final oral exam worked is that we were each assigned an individual time slot when we would come in and be evaluated by our course instructor and a knowledgeable guest (to ensure impartial evaluation). There were four possible final oral exam questions we could receive; fortunately, we did get to know the questions ahead of time. We also had one day in class which was dedicated to practicing and preparing a little bit for the oral exam questions.
One piece of advice if any of your classes have an oral exam: try to recognize areas of overlap between potential questions in order to prioritize what you should study and maximize the effectiveness of your time. For our four questions, there were definitely some areas of overlap; thus, by focusing on knowing the overlapping areas inside and out, you position yourself to do well regardless of which question you receive.
My final oral exam for my Glaciers and Human Impact class went pretty well. I arrived at the oral exam room and picked a playing card to determine which question I would get. I chose question #4, a question concerning the deglaciation and past & future sea level rise. This was a fun question because I had several graphs/images I drew on the whiteboards and utilized in my response to the question. The tricky part was when my course instructor and the guest evaluator would chime in with questions I was not entirely expecting or prepared for (so I had to improvise a little and rely on logical thinking). Be prepared for a couple of curveballs. Other than that, everything went fine, and I received positive feedback and my grade immediately afterwards.