14. Epic post! The last post ever!

As our first university year is finishing, it's time to develop a general opinion about student's life and our department. What is your impression about this year (studies, people, changes in your life, etc.)? What do you think about the results you are going to have? (Ruslan)

Ruslan, you should be really proud of yourself because I chose your topic as the last topic for my blog. As it's the last post, I'd like it to make a summary of my first university year. 

Being a university student isn't an easy thing. At least at our department. But still, it's easier than the last school year, which I fully dedicated to State Exam preparation. Uff.. I'm so glad it's not May 20th 2012 now because all eleventh-graders (except few lucky ones that passed olympiads) feel very nervous now because their State Exam is to come next week. Still, I think it's better than being a 10th-grader now because these poor guys are about to face the awful exam preparation next year.

Unfortunately, we're also going to have exams next week, and I feel a little bit nervous about them. Well, I think I'll pass all of them. The only 'dangerous' exam is microeconomics because it weighs 50% and becaue I totally failed the midterm and because I don't have good grades for home assignments (I feel myself Christopher from 'The Curious Incident...' when I write sentences in such structure). Yeah... Micro is a hard thing. However, I've maed some calculations and concluded that if I get 4-5 for the exam, I would still pass the course, and everything's gonna be allright.  I don't have hugh standarts about micro, so 4 for the course would be ok for me. As you might have noticed, I'm not too ambitious, which makes my life much easier.

As for the other exams, I think I'll pass all of them. Linear algebra is the hardest one, but I think I'll pass it. English exam isn't so crucial because it's just a small test that doesn't weigh so much. Hopefully, I'll get home free for art history, and won't have to pass the exam. And I think I'll manage to prepare for the anthropology (a.k.a biology) exam. 

Nevertheless, the exams and the home assignments alltoghether is a lot work to do, which depresses me. But I have to struggle this hard(core) studying  regime for about 2 weeks, so I think I'll survive and then summer holidays and everything's allright! 

Generally speaking, I'm glad I've spent this year at HSE-NES. I can't say that I like studying, and I often find this process rather frustrating. But in our department studying is not bad, and it's not so boring as studying in other places. I'd even say that sometimes it's very interesting, while 'interesting' isn't a common quality of studying process.  Studying here is often rather difficult, but not so super-duper-puper-difficult. I mean, despite all the challenges, I have some free time.  And this amount of free time is almost enough for me.

The most difficult aspect of student life for me is the psychological pressure you have to live with. I  mean, you always have to do some assignments, exams and so on, and there're some consequences if you forget about studying. The first is that you mught be expelled. But this is only if you do nothing for a very long time. The second is the one I face more often. This is that almost all my groupmates and teachers think and imply that you have to study constantly, and think and dream about it all the time. People in our department are very obsessed with studying; everybody talk about it all the time and everybody study all the time here. First I found it rather confusiong because in my school I was the one who studies more than others. But then I got used to being surrounded by... smart people, and everything's ok now.

So, to sum up, I'd like to thank HSE-NES for spending the year here. Hopefully, I'll be studying here next years as well. I'd like to thank everyone who read my blog (or had to to comment it). I congratulate you if you managed to read this whole post till the end.

Good luck!

Goodbye!