PENN 101: A not-so-fun first: Speakman frosh learn the art of the midterm

Food, games, screams and procrastination are all part of the 'studying' process for freshmen. It's midterm crunch time, and the freshmen on the second floor of the Quadrangle's Speakman section are heading off to Wawa for post-midnight munchies, staging shaving cream fights and revving up the Nintendo 64. Oh, and they're also studying a little. As The Daily Pennsylvanian continues to follow the lives of the 40 freshmen on this floor and the milestone events that typify the first-year experience, the first round of midterms stands out as a momentous event in every new student's year. It is a time when students develop the tools of self-discipline that will carry them through the rest of their academic career -- and the tools of procrastination that will help them put off reality for as long as possible. "I check my e-mail 74,000 times a day," admitted College freshman Rachel Fershleiser, an animated brunette whose slight Brooklyn accent still betrays her place of origin. Fershleiser's hallmates procrastinate by socializing in each other's rooms, playing Sextris -- an X-rated version of the popular Tetris computer-puzzle game -- and chowing down. Pizza from McClelland Hall and Ramen noodles are clear floor favorites. But behind this seemingly carefree attitude toward studying is a nagging anxiety over fast-approaching exams. "For my Art History midterm, I seriously do not know anything," said College freshman and Manhattan native Rachel Gross, who was studying for an exam scheduled for tomorrow. Gross had already survived the Psychology 1 test given two weeks ago. "It was OK," she said. "I had done none of the reading and hadn't gone to a single recitation." But the night before the exam, Gross crammed with friends for five hours. "We didn't do so well," she said. After this experience, Gross tackled her Art History work a little more earnestly. Settling down at her computer one recent night, she opened her class' Web site and accessed a photo of an Egyptian slate carving. All of the artwork her professor discussed in class is on the Internet in slide form, and Gross said she was planning on reviewing each and every slide. At the time of this interview, she was on slide No. 1. "I always get behind in things," said Gross, shrugging nonchalantly. She recalled a resolution she made in September: "I thought, when it's time to study for the final, there's going to be one kid in the class who did all the reading and types up notes, and I'm going to be that kid for the first time in my life, and everyone's going to be jealous and want copies and stuff." But her resolve crumbled early on. "I couldn't even do it for the first reading assignment," she admitted with a chuckle. Gross' mellow sense of humor helps her dilute her anxiety, but other hall residents choose to be a bit more aggressive about combatting exam stress. Just ask the econ screamers. The semester's first "econ scream," a campus-wide stress-relief tradition, took place at midnight the night before the October 8 Economics 1 midterm. "It was short, but I enjoyed it," said Wharton freshman Chitavan Pandya. Pandya, who was born in India and moved to the United States at the age of three, came to Penn from Clifton, N.J. On the night of the econ scream, she joined about 100 other freshmen on the Upper Quad's Junior Balcony who, at the stroke of midnight, shouted away their exam frustrations. Some people screamed, "Fuck econ!" while others, deriding a basic economics term, shouted, "I hate marginal benefit!" Some just yelled outright, even if they were studying for subjects other than econ. The freshmen have been observing another Penn tradition as well, and gingerly avoiding the stone compass located on Locust Walk at 37th Street. "When you walk in a group, you can see the group divide [over the compass] and then come back together," said Pandya, who, like many freshmen, heard the superstition that freshmen who cross the center of the compass are doomed to fail exams. "Before I knew about it, I walked over it and I failed," affirmed College freshman Lisa Kucharski, a petite blonde from Woodbridge, Conn. For Kucharski, failure was a "C" on her Chemistry midterm. "But the lowest grade on the test was a two, and the class average was a 39," Kucharski said, adding that her professor is partly to blame for the low scores because he uses scientific terms that none of the students comprehend. Not everyone was bummed after their first exam, however. "The test itself was actually too easy," said Wharton freshman Karl Schulze, describing his econ exam. "The curve is going to be pretty fierce." Which doesn't mean that Schulze didn't work hard for his good grade. "I feel like I prepared myself as well as I could," he said, recalling all the chapters he read, the definitions he memorized and the Econ graduate student who helped him study. In general, much of the freshmen's midterm trauma is exacerbated by the adjustment process from high school to college academics. "In high school, we used to be smart. We used to do well on tests," Fershleiser said. Pandya agreed. "I used to be able to study an hour before the test and get away with it," she said. "Here you know there's always someone who will study 10 times more than you." The freshmen said they are also unaccustomed to taking tests from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. -- right over the dinner hour. Plus, exams are often held in buildings with which they are unfamiliar. "My math midterm is in the Nursing Educational Building or something like that. Where the hell is that?" complained College freshman Po Saidi, a native of Iran who now hails from Rockville, Md. The location of Saidi's test is actually called the Nursing Education Building. Saidi, who sports a goatee and a mustache, pinpointed another reason freshmen struggle at exam time. "I know so many people who are having a lot of problems on their midterms just because this is around the time when they start breaking up with their high school boyfriends or girlfriends," Saidi said. Although a freshman's first exams may be traumatic, the Speakman group, like the freshmen before them, are making it through mostly in one piece. Gross, for one, laments over all the art samples she must memorize for tomorrow's Art History 101 exam, but her midterm qualms haven't eroded her fascination with the subject matter. "Next semester I want to take Art History 102: European Art & Civilization after 1400," she said. "I think that's going to be really interesting."

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