It's exam season again.

Libraries are fuller once again, your coffee consumption is at an all-time high, and somewhere, an MLS student is staring at a lecture slide for the tenth time, wondering why the words suddenly look unfamiliar..and then comes the exam.

Two to three hours solving a handful of questions and somehow those three hours are powerful enough to define an entire semester. Seems extreme and frankly a little unfair.

I just concluded my semester exams and here's a thought that has stayed with me throughout: The exam paper doesn't know you.

It doesn't know that you attended every lecture...or not. It doesn't know that you stayed up late trying to understand a concept that refused to make sense. It doesn't know about the practical reports you completed, the notes you rewrote, the study sessions you joined, or the days you pushed through exhaustion because you still had one more topic to cover.

The exam paper doesn't know your effort. It only knows your answers and that's a difficult reality to accept.

Personally, sometimes, despite my preparation, I’ll walk out of an exam remembering everything I should have written. Other times, one question will make me doubt everything I know and almost always I'll leave the exam hall absolutely convinced that I could have done better. It;s really not a nice feeling.

On a lighter note though, here's what I've come to realize even though it has definitely taken me a while to:

An examination only measures your performance at a particular moment in time. It doesn't measure your curiosity, your tenacity or your growth and it certainly doesn't measure the kind of Medical Laboratory Scientist you're capable of becoming.

That doesn't mean exams aren't important, they definitely are. I mean, they test your knowledge, your preparation, your ability to apply what you've learned under pressure and getting the grades you worked for is so rewarding but they should never become the only mirror through which you see yourself because one day, the lecture slides will disappear, the exam halls will become a memory and all the grades will be filed away and what will remain is the kind of scientist you become through the process.

So, study hard, revise your notes, practice your questions, and give the exam your absolute best but if this season teaches me and you anything, let it be this:

You are more than your worst exam..and maybe that's both the hardest and most important lesson of exam season.🔬