After a long February, my first round of “should i sleep, study, or procrastinate?” every night for three weeks is over. I was unlucky in that all the snow we’ve been having this winter caused a couple of my exams to be delayed and instead of one week from hell, I had to go into every Monday knowing that sometime that week I had an exam. It was rough but now that I’m done I can finally get back into the normal everyday life at Lehigh. Although it is challenging, its nothing compared to exams, and its definitely doable.
So as my grades trickle back in, and one by one a little more weight is lifted off my shoulders, things get better and better and I get a little more confident. The exams here are made to be extremely difficult, going in expecting a 100 is often times naive because the average grade on Lehigh exams can be as low as a 40. Think about that, people from across the world, all at the top of their respected High School classes, all being challenged to such an extent. Half the battle is keeping your cool as you go through a 5 part test and not understanding the first 3.
Study hard and don’t expect a straight forward exam. Professors expect you to get some things wrong because the tests here are not about doing problems exactly from the book. Exams at Lehigh are about testing your ability to apply what you’ve learned to different situations, because in real life, problems are not from the book. Averages will be low, but grades will be curved. So when you go to a difficult and prestigious college like Lehigh, prepare to be stumped on tests, but don’t worry, if you’ve learned what you are supposed to have learned, you’ll still end up with the grade you deserve at the end of the semester.
First-Year Lehigh Engineers 