Anticipating Assessments and Why Nihilism is Important
It’s rare for me to dip my toes into philosophy so for all those philosophical purists out there, excuse my use of “nihilism” if it is used poorly.
There is nothing less nerve-wracking, sweat-inducing, adrenaline-producing, heart-pounding of a moment than waiting for the final minutes to tick down before you flip open the first page of an assessment. I don’t doubt that this is something that most of us struggle with, especially considering our recent transition from an education system that defined you by numbers and IDs.
Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.
Yes, yes, yes. We’ve all heard that quote from somewhere, and it’s probably stuck up on a primary school classroom wall where little kiddies all look wondrously upon it like some sacred creed.
The very harsh reality (as we university/graduated high school students understand) is that we won’t land among the stars sometimes. Even worse, we can feel like we have actually sunk more and more into the ground.
Remember how you felt asking your now boyfriend/girlfriend out for the first time? Or how you felt during your P-plate test? Or, more recently, perhaps the intense few moments before you saw your ATAR? It’s no lie we get nervous at anything with high stakes.
But what if the stakes weren’t that high?
I’m going to make an assumption here that – since we all go to UniMelb, we have high ambitions or goals we want to achieve in life (no, the university did not pay me to say that).
Let’s go back to that John Doe experiencing that nerve-wracking, sweat-inducing, adrenaline-producing, heart-pounding few seconds before he opens his test. John Doe, whilst academically competent, is short-sighted to some extent. John Doe sees this test as an obstacle to his future, whereas it really is but a side quest in the pilgrimage of life.
But don’t just take my word for it. Apply it to your own situation.
Do you have a dream? An ambitious goal you want to achieve beyond your academic years at the university? Maybe you want to be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company? Maybe you want to discover a breakthrough cancer treatment medication? Or perhaps you want to concoct a piece of literature so superb you’ll be known as the modern-day Shakespeare?
Now, with the grand scope of everything in sight, reconsider the (in)significance of this test.
Does this test really have you in that much of a chokehold like John Doe? No. Relax. Take it easy. By all means, try your best but don’t sweat it.
That’s where a little bit of nihilism comes in.
Of course, don’t believe that life is meaningless like the definition wants you to, but it doesn’t hurt to take that attitude and apply it to the test you’re so stressed about.
Remember all those times in Year 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 or 12, when you worried about your test results? Where is that concern now? Gone. Vanished in thin air as the endless flow of time naturally carried your burdens away.
Don’t let the mentality or score on this one test affect your life goal. Your life plans of appreciable contributions to society will not be derailed if you leave a blank answer on your test papers. In truth, some years later, you’ll find that this one assessment really didn’t matter and you were able to carry yourself onwards despite the mental trench you enclosed yourself in.
Am I a hypocrite?
I am writing this article as perhaps one of the many that may vehemently reject this moral.
I want to study medicine at the University of Melbourne – one of the few thousands around Australia. It is a supremely competitive course with an acceptance rate probably somewhere in the single digits.
As a part of my application, my GPA (derived from my WAM) is accounted for. First-year subjects are weighed with a factor of 1, second-year subjects with a factor of 2, third-year subjects with a factor of 3. I will end up doing 24 subjects during my time at uni.
Recently, I stressed about and completed an online test worth 10% of the grade on a subject.
Let’s do the maths behind this:
Total subject weight = (8 * 1) + (8 * 2) + (8 * 3) = 48
Test is worth 0.1 * 1.
Hence the percentage is 0.1/48 * 100(%) = 0.2083%.
But that’s not all… my WAM is only 25% of my entire application. So, after all, that single test is worth 0.0521%.
Yeah, thinking back, it really wasn’t worth stressing about. Especially not in my first year of university.
Final Words of Wisdom
For all the Jaffies or future Jaffies reading this. Stop worrying. Your time will come uni and you’ll have your golden moment, but stop stressing about these little assessments that have little meaning during academia and even less so in your future career. Enjoy life for a little while and take the burden of your future off your back – because you don’t need to carry it just yet.
– Isaac