Exams are the looming inevitability that stalk every semester. It’s wild to think that three hours on a random Tuesday can make or break four months of work, but the structure shows no signs of changing anytime soon. Besides, the worst part of the exam season might not be the test itself, but where you are subjected to writing it.
At Brock, where you write your exams can dictate your experience. Some rooms help you lock in and get the job done, while others feel engineered for discomfort, frustration, rumination and dread. Between midterms and finals, I’ve had my share of time in Brock’s exam spaces, and while no exam environment is ideal, some rooms are definitely worse than others.
Sean O’Sullivan Theatre and DHOWES
Sean O’Sullivan Theatre — better known as SOS — is an appropriately named room you’ll be begging to escape from after the first 20 minutes. In my opinion, it’s one of the worst spots to take an exam on campus.
Although a theatre sounds glamorous, it offers a special kind of torment. Primarily the writing surfaces, which are tiny fold out tables that offer less workspace than an airplane tray and seats that don’t lend to a comfortable test taking experience. Sitting up to write an exam in a chair meant for passive viewing leads to intense discomfort and back pain.
Somehow worse than SOS, DHOWES offers smaller folding tables and seats that are far less forgiving and far louder due to their age. I never expected to miss the hard plastic classroom chairs, but between SOS and DHOWES, they make it happen.
Thistle
Thistle rooms are a gamble. As we’ve established, folding desks are not ideal exam material. Though Thistle offers seats with larger folding tables, the burden from heavy laptops seems to give these “desks” a forward tilt, meaning your pencils, erasers and sanity are always one slip away from hitting the floor. While the writing surface is slightly larger than the trays in the auditoriums, it’s still too cramped for anything beyond your test paper. If your exam includes both a scantron and a booklet, good luck juggling them on a desk that barely fits one.
South Block
The South Block rooms are the definition of fine. Writing in a smaller room with solid tabletops has its upsides and getting to write an exam with the classmates you’ve seen all term feels comforting — almost like a home-field advantage. But the moment you do anything besides sit perfectly still, the South Block illusion collapses.
My main issue with South Block rooms are the chairs. Each one comes with a swiveling arm underneath. Not only does it make the chair distracting to sit in but pick the wrong chair and you’re subjecting your classmates to a symphony of creaking misery. Although exams can be stressful, most of the crying that I hear in South Block is from the chairs begging for WD-40.
Ian Beddis Gym
The colossus. The arena. The place where academic destinies rise and fall. Ian Beddis seats nearly 1,000 stressed-out students in perfectly aligned rows and honestly, I don’t hate it. There’s something motivating about seeing hundreds of students hunched over booklets — a communal locking in if you will — but it’s not without its quirks.
Asking a question is a five-minute ordeal of straining your arm and waiting on your TA or professor to zigzag through the aisles and give you an answer that’s vague at best. Beddis isn’t without its distractions, and the windows that surround it mean any unprepared test taker will find themselves people-watching. Anyone who has made the trek to the washroom knows that the walk back to your seat leads to a sea of eyeballs staring at you.
Bob Davis Gym
Bob Davis is Ian Beddis’ calmer, friendlier sibling. Smaller, quieter and tucked away from the campus traffic, it’s easily my favorite exam location.
There’s enough space to breathe without feeling drowned in 1,000 students, and you get the collective focus boost from hundreds of test takers without the intimidation of the bigger gym. While the comfort is on par with Ian Beddis, Bob Davis offers a calmer environment with better climate control, which all leads to a superior exam-taking experience.
Take-home exams
In theory, take-home exams are a dream; in practice, they’re a trap. After the pandemic, take-home exams live permanently on my “never again” list. Sure, some people thrive at home, but I cannot trust myself near a comfortable bed, a kitchen full of snacks and an always hyper dog. Exams demand a level of focus I only seem capable of achieving on campus. Home might be cozy, but cozy rarely equates to productivity.
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Exam season at Brock is stressful enough, but the room you’re assigned to can tilt the entire experience from manageable to miserable. So, as you plan your study schedule and brace for finals, make sure you know where you’re writing — because the real test may not be the exam itself, but the consequences of the room it’s written in.