Is It Worth It?

I'll firstly apologise for the very philosophical/open/misleading title, what you're about to read is probably going to be a gargantuan let-down but I needed something to draw you in... and here you are - suckers. It is relevant, I promise you that.

So I've spent the past week following a very monotonous (emphasis on the word monotonous  regime of waking up, revising and then sleeping. Midway through an 'Applied Economics and IT Skills' exercise (yawn!) today I just lost all motivation; all my focus just vanished. Poof. I was sat thinking to myself "Is it worth it?" (I told you it was relevant!). Will the endless hours spent with my head buried in a textbook, drinking semi-lethal amounts of caffeine-filled drinks  actually produce a worthwhile output when results day comes around? I can feel any shreds of a social life I once had slowly disintegrating with every new note I write. I want it to all be worth it, but how do I know it will be? The only conclusion I came to is "I don't" - you can now refer back to the part where I mentioned 'gargantuan let-down' in the first paragraph and nod your head frustratingly. I'm sorry.

The fact is though, there is no way of proving that the grade you get on results day is due to the many hours/lack of revision you did in the build up. What's to say that you wouldn't have got that grade had you followed a different route during your exam preparation? I'll tell you what: nothing. The 'wonders' of revision and exam preparation are hammered into us through the many years of education without any solid evidence to prove it works. Odd.

However, we can make an educated assumption that it does no harm to revise - it just may not do any good either. That's the key point, I think. You have to bear in mind throughout the process that if the studying is sending you in any direction, then that direction is upwards. Commit 3 hours to revision or 123 hours, it doesn't matter, you can be safe in the knowledge that your grade will not be falling because of it. With that being said I implore you to keep going, your time isn't being wasted.

I guess this post is an over-ambitious attempt to motivate others, in the blind hope that it will motivate me. Surprisingly enough it has worked: Sam 1, revision 0. You can keep your motivational speaker offers for your charity event to yourself, I'm not interested - and if that isn't good enough, then I'm otherwise occupied. I can't help but pick up on the irony of the situation though - I'm talking about motivating you to revise while at the same time I'm procrastinating on another level writing this article. Funny, but we'll move swiftly away from that.

Take care, guys.

Sam