Written by Anne-Cathérine Verellen, Global Ambassador and Masters in International Business student. 

As business school students, we all experience some level of stress and anxiety, especially during exam week. It is a stressful week, but it also provides an opportunity to get to know some pretty amazing people. To give you a little taste of what life looks like during this time, let me break down the 7 stages of exam week for you:

1. Denial

School just started and you’re having so much fun. You just want to keep having fun with your friends and explore the city. You don’t want to face the fact that you’ll have to put all of this on hold for a while and actually start studying, so you just keep on going and pretend that exam week isn’t looming.

2. Realization

Professors are giving out examples of possible questions for the exam, and the reality hits you that you will actually need to start studying… ASAP! You start making schedules for what you will study and when you will study it.

3. Procrastination

Even though you’ve realized that you really need to start swotting up, Netflix seems so much more interesting and you have just found a new series that you love and can’t stop watching. Studying will just have to wait. Then you begin to browse social media, you see thousands of memes about midterms and finals and you start tagging your friends and classmates. You also realize that you are quite far behind on the study schedule that you made during the “realization phase” and you start making a new one.

4. Stress

So, exams are just around the corner and you finally start to study. You realize that you’re in big trouble and blame yourself. You start thinking about the fact that you should have started everything earlier. You begin complaining that you’re in trouble and start asking friends and classmates how they’re doing and if they are behind as well. The stress levels are rising.

5. Bonding

You find out your classmates are in the same situation as you, which calms you down. People in your cohort are starting to organize study groups so you may actually/hopefully get some work done. You plan to study until midnight at school and think, “food delivery at school? Yes! All day, every day!” With some good food and a night spent at school, you are finally beginning to make progress.

6. Exams

So, here they are. Now it’s finally time to put those millions of hours of studying and work to good use.

7. Winding down

Exams are done! Basta! Over! Finito! All those hours of studying are over and have hopefully paid off. After a well-deserved powernap, you can celebrate that the exams are finally over.

Although exam week is a pretty stressful period, it is also pretty amazing. You create a bond with your classmates because you’re all in this together. Everybody is under pressure but still makes time to help each other out – that’s definitely one of the biggest perks of being a student at Hult. You get really close to people in such a short amount of time, and those friendships will only become stronger through times like exam week. So, remember that exams can actually be the worst and the best times of your experience at Hult.