Our sympathies to William Pimlott who is doing finals

It would be hard to write about anything else. I am going through finals, I am experiencing them. Or to put it less extravagantly, self-obsession being a large part of the finals experience, I am revising for exams.

Finals. Finals. Finals. Finals are the “final” examinations that all Oxford students sit and which tend to constitute the entirety of their degree. But mind bogglingly, perhaps sadistically, the exams which count for years of study take place not over the course of the degree but instead over the course of a week or two. Before finals you have completed almost none of your degree, two weeks later it is all over. Finals has thus come to mean far more than simply the exams. Doing finals, being a finalist, revising for finals, becomes the student’s whole life plan for the months that precede the exams. A process of condensation and revision, intermittently spiced with panic.

It is also hard to talk about anything else. You have nothing but your subject to talk about, and people only ever ask you about finals anyway. If the conversation goes any further, to questions such as “what have you been up to?” or “what did you do last week?”, you begin to feel baffled and threatened. Whole stressful weeks blur into the memory of a library desk. In a modern twist, everyone’s Facebooks become empty, eery almost, despite the fact that everyone is spending much more time on Facebook. You find yourself spending more time talking to yourself than with other people.

My personal lowest point so far came about during the Randolph fire. The cruel flames, bringing devastation on Oxford’s most famous hotel, seemed to me not a tragic accident, but an attack on my attempt to get to the library.

My revision plans for the afternoon went up in smoke. I fumed, like the world famous hotel, outraged that I would have to take a detour around the whole of Balliol and Trinity (a detour which proved to be a total waste of time as when I arrived they had taken the barrier down). When a friend asked me if anyone was hurt, I realised I hadn’t even thought about it: I had been too worried about getting to the library. I had lost my grip on reality, any sense of perspective.

Finals had taken me over. I do, however, partially put this moment of absurd self-absorption down to a not misplaced faith in British Health and Safety procedure, which I have had my fair share of insight into, being my staircase’s fire warden. Nonetheless, the fire was my Waterloo.

But finals as I am sitting them will not be the same for much longer. Yet again, the university is changing. It is not just the question of the bizarre uniform: the examination system itself is evolving. More and more subjects are choosing to assess their students by coursework.

Three of English’s seven finals examinations are coursework modules. I myself wrote two pieces of coursework. The examination only system seems to be disappearing. It is unclear what the consequences of this change for students will be. It might lead to decreased stress and overall happiness, but it also risks ruining the almost too perfect freedom that years without examinations bring. The cult of finals may well be on the way out.

But for the moment I still have nothing to write about, or talk about, or think about, bar finals. With any luck the next column will find me, and nearly all of Oxford’s students, feeling a lot freer, and with something else to write about.