You know it's exam season when...

Published in SIN Nov 22 2011

by Lia Stokes

Image via bellaghparish.com

IT’S that time of year again. The time when this laid back, smiley-university of ours becomes a bleak, soul-less petri dish of stress and guilt. Exam season has creeped up on us once more, in its ever swift and stealthy fashion and has brought with it some notable changes to the college.

The Bialann and Smokeys, whose warm and friendly atmospheres act as perfect locations to un-wind, have recently become haunting grounds for the hungry and sleep deprived. The bodies of students who usually saunter around the halls with a spring in their step and a sparkle in their eye can be seen gnarled and broken as they hunch over their only meal of the day, usually consisting of a large coffee and little else.

During this grim season, social hot-spots such as the library and reading room become void of the interaction that defines them throughout the rest of the year. Even the infamous ‘Top Floor’ or CPs as it is otherwise known, grows decidedly less glamorous in the run up to exams. The immaculately made-up and perfectly coiffed ladies that stomp the leafy aisles are somewhat more dishevelled and much less ‘shiny’ than usual. Their pale pallor is lacking its lip-glossed smile, and they only stop to talk to every third person on the way to the bathroom.    

The hum of quiet chatter and gossip is replaced by ghostly silence and the only sound of communication is the clattering of keyboards and hushed tones seeking notes or rare books. Backs are hunched and twisted over desks that become home for the duration and once hopeful eyes are reddened and manic in an effort to stay awake.


What must be distressing for lecturers in particular during this time, is the masses of unfamiliar faces descending on their lecture halls in the hope of gaining even the smallest amount of information that could lend itself to a higher grade. Where they usually deal with hand fulls of willing spectators, they are now faced with hundreds of greedy eyes staring down at them in a trance like-state.

Yes, exam season takes its toll on the best of us. Stress-levels are off the scales and immune systems are at an all time low. People can be heard coughing and spluttering in all corners of the campus. The cold and inevitably wet weather only worsens the pains of flu and seems to mirror the feeling of gloom and despair felt by thousands of students.

However, it is perhaps most terrifying for first year students. Having just been through a year of what some may describe as hell, studying for their leaving Cert, they do not expect to be burdened with such a work load and the inevitable guilt, so soon. They edge their way cautiously around the alien aisles of the library praying they have the correct code for the book that may unlock all of the answers and strategically avoiding the eyes of anyone else who may laugh at their ignorance of the seemingly complicated system.

A pleasant time it is not. Galway bars and clubs are loosing more business by the day, longing for the return of their loyal patrons and hoping exams are finished early this year.
It is an eerie time as tumbleweed rolls across the threshold to the College Bar a place where activity is now limited to lunch and dinner for the starving throngs.

Yet as the days go by a glimmer of hope emerges in the form a Christmas tree. Erected in the Bar, the beast stands around ten feet tall, adorned with twinkling lights and shiny baubles. Slowly but surely festive songs seep through the speakers hoping to breath life and faith back in to the suffering student body.