Examination period in Belgium

January was arrived, the examination period was going to start soon and I was going to take the hardest exam first.

I dedicated a lot of effort and time to study for that course. Unfortunately I was not confident in my subject knowledge.  There was a lot of information and formulas that I didn't memorize by heart and the problem was the examination was going to be closed book.

The long-awaited day arrived, I received the exam sheet from one of the assistants and, as soon as I started to read the paper, I noticed that the questions were the same content I had read/studied the night before. I was so happy so I started to answer the questions. It took me around 4 hours to finish the exam

Two days later I was scheduled to take another exam.  It was an open book exam and  I was more confident about this exam than the previous one.  because I spent too much time learning the information for the first exam and I hadn't studied enough. Nevertheless, I did my best but, unfortunately, I couldn't finish it. I had 4 hours to do it, but I just spent too much time to catch up on the "basics" stuff. It was a disaster.

I had more or less 5 days to prepare for two more exams. I truly spent too much effort to get a passing grade on those exams. I was very confident and I am not worried as I believed I've passed those courses.

I had another 4 days to prepare for the last exam of my first semester. I studied as hard as I could and in this particular exam I had  has both a written and oral part. The written exam was ok, not excellent but at least I was satisfied with my answers the things I did. The hard part was the oral exam, I just mixed up everything I knew. I gave very bad answers and something sometimes I contradicted myself. It wasn't funny, especially when the professor was in front of me you.

The period examination was over, I was quite disappointed about my performance in that exams. I thought I was going to fail two courses, the second and the last one, but something unexpected happened...

My first months in Belgium

I've already been  living in Belgium for 6 months. I'm trying to finish my master degree. At the beginning I was really excited about this new adventure, actually I hung out with new international people, most of them latinos (it's not possible to  impossible not have latinos friends when you are one of them).

I went to parties and I practiced just a little bit of my english there. I know, it's not the best place to practice speaking skills because of the loud music, but I did my best.

What does happened with the university classes?

In the very start  At first, the lectures were good and quiet  quite easy, I'd say (or in this case I'd write). Then, suddenly, the level of all my classes speeded  sped up. By the end of the first month, I was full with new projects, new information to learn and many things to catch up.

I was overwhelming  overwhelmed with many things to do and I didn't know how to tackle that situation. So I started to quit parties, social events and I focussed in  focused on the material and studying every single day, even weekends.

I must confess that I'm not a person that can focus for  on one thing for a very long time, so maybe that was one of the reasons I was having issues with my master. Also, as I mentioned in a previous notebook, I don't feel confortable or confident with my level of english, and that was a struggle for me.

Additionally, I was trying to give time to my girlfriend on the weekends. She supported me and I was really have happy to be with her. I can was able to recharge my energy and continue with that overload of work.

So the weeks advanced and the information never stopped. A lot of new topics to learn, the most difficult one was something called "Modelling of Complex Systems". I've never been involved in that topic and the Professor assumed that everyone had previous knowledge in something called "First Order Logic". Obviously, I was quiet quite lost even with the definition of that topic.

Another course that was really hard was something called "Declarative Languages". I had a two graded exercises sessions and that and I epically failed both. I was very upset with myself.

Don't misunderstand me, I was quiet quite happy to be in another country learning new things, most of them were super interesting for me, but I never expected the work involved in this experience.

In the next notebook I'd like to write something about the winter holidays and the feared examination period.

If you have any comment/suggestion/complain please leave a comment.

If you want to practice your Spanish please feel free to contact me.