Winter Exams

Why do college's insist on examinations?

As winter closes in there's more than the dubious shelter of beer gardens and River Island's new "warm but expensive" clothing line on the mind of the average student. Now is the time when the joke of the previous semester stops being funny and starts becoming serious as the winter exams approach. So why are we obligated to put down our pint glasses and force every little morsel of information pertaining to our course into our already bewildered brains?

Surely if our course material was completely relevant to future life the proof of our knowledge would be apparent when we emerge as "functional members of society". The real result of our respective courses should be practical knowledge in the field that we've chosen. It seems like our lecturers realise the uselessness of 90% of their programs and as such, try to impose some worth by making them part of our final grade.

Is there an alternative? Maybe if our society didn't put such a huge emphasis on meaningless GPA numbers and pointless pieces of paper we wouldn't have to break our necks learning impractical facts. Judge our merit in the workplace first, then delegate those futile honours.

Well, I don't believe I can procrastinate any longer with this short essay. Time to learn the past tense of Old English verbs. You never know when it could come in handy...

-The English Student