Know Your Worth

35

The next two months went by in a blur, and the next semester break was approaching.

Well, I was focusing on the more positive thing. The more negative but important thing, however, was that the break that I was greatly looking forward to was only going to happen after the final huge exam of freshman year. 

These were the biggest examinations I was ever going to sit for so far. When the online exam timetable was available on the university website, I went to the campus printing station and printed the relevant pages. Seeing the examination dates for the subjects I was taking made me feel a little dizzy and scared because it was a slap to the face that these examinations were a huge deal. 

Whenever I started devising a study plan or booked more consultations with my tutors, these actions made me feel a bit more productive and more importantly, prepared. I had gotten into the Microsoft internship, and I was over the moon about it for a solid week, gushing to my mom about my acceptance. This happened until the reality sank in that I was going to have to sacrifice my end-of-year break at a lab for ten weeks, working with a probably intimidating researcher to come up with a project that needed to be stellar.

I was rejected from the Goldman Sachs internship, which was a bummer because it had the most demanding application. I had spent a good chunk of time on it, but apparently, a lot of people had applied, and they probably weren't inexperienced freshmen like me. As for the entrepreneur programme, I found out that they required a hefty fee to participate, and I was immediately No Bueno. There was no way I was going to fork out four hundred dollars. 

 In retrospect, I probably should have focused my efforts on the Microsoft programme. There was this brief window of time where I cried my eyes out when I saw that I didn't get selected for the Goldman Sachs internship as I had spent a lot of time. The time I spent on the application was valuable time I could have used to do more past-year practice papers under timed conditions. 

Then my mind started spiraling, thinking that if I didn't do okay for final examinations, it was because of the fact that I spent time on Goldman Sachs, only to get rejected. It was a very depressing thought, and I ended up spending a lot of time holed up in my dorm, at lectures and seminars, at tutorial homerooms, the restrooms, and the library. 

I wasn't the only one. Sam suddenly became very serious about studying and revising a month before the final examinations and stopped hanging out with her friends, choosing to study on her own with her headphones plugged in. She occasionally studied with me at the library, but unlike her usual giggly, distracted self, she just sat down and did her work without talking to me or anyone. 

Janine and Layla did join us for lunch and dinner sometimes, but they also spent less time with us and their other friends, and more time meeting up with their lecturers to clarify their doubts. As for the guys, they were surprisingly very disciplined in their socialising. 

Damien did frequently spend time with Sam, but he got the message that he would just be a distraction for her, so he did go about doing his own study plans with Theo. Axel went MIA, and Theo assured me that he always did that before huge exams to focus, and Nate was, well, Nate and did go out partying quite often. 

Kayla had finally gotten out of her sad shell and started to look more alive compared to the blank, dead and depressed look that she had after her mid-year grades release. She did end up telling that she had gotten a D- for her Computer science degree and that she was determined to redeem herself for the final examinations. It gave her the motivation to grind and revise diligently and started going to the cafeteria to buy food for herself instead of relying on me or someone else to do that for her. 

Everyone was looking serious and frustrated with studying. The library would be full, and all the seats would be used up so it was a constant race to see who could wake up the earliest to form a line outside the library before it opens. The student lounges with tables and chairs would also be occupied for long hours, not to mention the charging stations.