Everyone's Nightmare: Late for the Exam

Here's a piece of advice for everyone: know when your exams are, and make sure you don't turn up late for them. I messed up with that once. Never again.

At the end of my first year, I faced the spectre of University exams for the first time. All went by fairly unremarkably until my last one arrived. The day of the exam I woke up at 4 am to study, and well before the 5 pm exam time rolled around, I was pumped and on my way out the door with sharpened pencils, erasers, and watch in hand.

On last thought, I checked the registrar’s website to double-check the exam location. I was horrified to discover that the two hour exam had begun at 3 pm. I didn’t understand because I had the exam date written in big letters on the calendar on my desk. After an extended freak out session, I discovered the reason for this catastrophe – I had mistaken the messy three on my calendar for a five.

I panicked. After dashing off an email to my prof, I literally ran all the way to the exam room and found it nearly deserted. I ran back to residence and found that my professor had replied in my absence. He had written that if I could catch him in his office in the next hour, which had already elapsed, I could attempt to write the exam but beyond that there was nothing he could do for me.

I raced to his building only to find that I had missed him. After a nervous bout of exhaustion induced vomiting outside his building, I went back to my room stunned. I can’t even remember the hoops I had to jump through, but it was truly gruesome. They made it very plain that it was extremely serious. I had to be talked to by the Dean (not pleasant, I can assure you) and he contacted the prof on my behalf. I then had to stay on at the University for several days while they decided what to do with me. Everyone else had gone home, so there I was in my room sweating for the whole time, to say nothing of what everyone at home thought when I had to explain why I wasn't coming home for a while. I had to fill in forms, write stuff out, and generally cover myself with stuff I know you won't mention in the book.

I eventually was allowed to write the exam a week later, another version of the exam, I think. Some of the questions were set up just slightly differently from the way the same kinds of questions had been written through the term; I never did find out for sure though.

It was a truly horrific experience that I hope never to relive, made a lot worse by its being 100% my own stupid fault. I have since adopted the habit of checking and rechecking my exam dates and times as well as developing contacts in most classes as a deadline safety net.