Domhnall McGlacken-Byrne | Contributing Writer
On completion of the last of my third year Christmas exams this year, I passed the afternoon getting a haircut, having a shower and returning to my beloved Tetris (at which I was dismayed to learn I had grown quite rusty). The cynic in me wryly observed that this already guaranteed these Christmas holidays to be significantly more productive than the last, which I spent ineptly preparing for the academic graveyard known as the Foundation Scholarship Examinations. As I type this in early January, it was this time last year that I reached the lowest depths of my studying frenzy: with only days left until the exams, I recall making the decision that my reams of notes would be best put to use in furnishing the cosy fort I had built myself under my desk.
My motive for writing this article comes from my solidarity with those many brave souls who – year in, year out – make this same baffling decision to spend their Christmas holidays in voluntary misery, readying themselves for entirely optional exams.
Going For Schols
Free food, every day? Not having to live in Bray anymore? Sign me up!
For me and, I imagine, for many secondary school students, I admit that the archaic tradition of Scholarship formed part of the initial attraction of coming to Trinity. A celebration of academic excellence? Free food, every day? Not having to live in Bray anymore? Sign me up! When second year began, I decided I’d give it a whack.
I adopted the rather inadvisable tactic of ruminating at great length on the enormity of the task ahead, while making incredibly little progress. I recall taking one look at a slab of dense reading material prescribed on our special topic of Autoimmune Diseases, warm from the printer, and deciding that the Wikipedia article on Famous People With Autoimmune Diseases would surely stand to me better in the long-term.
Before long my Christmas exams crept up and so my floundering Schols work was tabled for the refreshing, month-long task of committing to memory many hundreds of instantly forgotten drug names. This completed, I rewarded myself with a weekend-long reacquaintance with the rare pleasures of being outdoors and human conversation. Alas, sadly, the highlighters, troll doll mascots and industrial-strength earmuffs were soon taken out once again.
I remember, over those holidays, asking my friends if they would still put in the effort if, hypothetically, Scholarship lacked its considerable practical and monetary benefits. This was immediately rubbished as ludicrous; what other conceivable benefits could there be? In retrospect, I predict in such a situation that most of the students currently drawn to this challenge would be drawn to it still: for its own sake. Just as so many of us feel compelled to undertake any other worthy, but outwardly pointless, endeavour such as running a marathon, or climbing a mountain – or becoming excessively good at Tetris – there is a curious aspect of human nature that makes us want to push ourselves, to be challenged. The desire to undertake something not because it is easy but precisely because it is hard is an admirable trait and something of which any candidate should be proud, successful or not.
Anyway, of those weeks of crafting essays and attempting to predict possible Anatomy questions, a vivid memory that remains is the late night when I finally completed my masterpiece on Rheumatoid Arthritis, rubbed my eyes in exhausted satisfaction and reached for my pint of water, which I dropped onto my keyboard. As well as the immensely inconvenient day-long setback spent hair-drying my fizzing laptop, this event sadly dealt me the double whammy of having to spend a year struggling with my beloved, permanently crippled computer that no longer possessed a functional Ctrl key and interspersed my e-mails with long unhelpful streams of the number 6. You’ll be happy to know I now type this article on a much-needed Christmas present.
Not Getting Schols
The exams, in the end, were approximately as horrific as I had predicted. They were followed by a long recuperation period in which I slowly regained the ability to converse with other humans. As past candidates will attest to, the interval before Trinity Monday is of an irritating duration. It is long enough to allow you to forget about the process completely, but short enough to make sure that doesn’t last very long.
Trinity Monday came and went. The announcement of the Scholars is a rather surreal ceremony. My nerves were soothed for a brief moment as I wondered what purpose was served by the large ornamental stick held by the man to the left of the Provost, and whether I could have a go if I my name got called out. It wasn’t. I got the 145 home by myself.
I won’t lie, as more than a few who read this will recall, not getting Schols leaves a bruise.
I won’t lie, as more than a few who read this will recall, not getting Schols leaves a bruise. Students’ eagerness to forget the entire charade means it’s not talked about very much. I wasn’t sure if I had the potential to do well in the exams, but had sold myself short, or if I just didn’t have the potential to begin with. I remain unsure which of these is tougher to take. Needless to say, I have since forgotten everything I knew about Rheumatoid Arthritis.
Was It Worth It?
Most candidates are left to exhibit wholly different traits such as resilience and the ability to fail with grace
Funnily enough, it really was. I would encourage any student in any course to sign up to Schols, and to give it everything – I would again in the drop of a hat. The virtues fostered by Scholarship, according to the TCD website, include “exceptional knowledge”, “informed critical thought”. The hidden other side of this coin is that, in truth, most candidates are left to exhibit wholly different traits such as resilience and the ability to fail with grace, which may prove to be of equal or greater value. Inadequacy is deemed incompatible with our culture of success and of competition; aversion to failure helps to explain the cosmetic predictability of magazine covers and the guarded secrecy students so often maintain of the fact that they work hard. Yet, like it or not, as the poem “Desiderata” reminds us, there will be “always greater and lesser persons” than ourselves.
With the perspective afforded by a year’s passing, I really don’t mind that I didn’t get Schols. Ironically, most of my thinking for this rewarding little essay took place on the 145, and so in another world might never have occurred. Be it by willingly sabotaging one’s own Christmas holidays to study, by broadening one’s horizons in a society or charity or by engaging in any other way with the world around us, any students who stick their heads above the parapet and who ‘out’ themselves as dissatisfied with minimal experience I deem deserving of congratulation.
The pursuit of excellence is admirable for its own sake; its achievement is a rare bonus.
