There are interesting traditions the students have before exams. Check them: maybe you will borrow some.
Naked race
Yale University was among the first ones where students organized a naked race, which was supposed to bring them luck on the important exam. Throughout the years this tradition became quite popular and is followed by many students from different colleges and universities all over the world. Moreover, quite often the university’s administration supports the runners by providing them with police and security protection, as not only other people’s reaction on naked students can be unexpected, but they can also be arrested for violating the public orders. Would you be brave enough to take part in one of such races? Who knows, maybe it will have an outstanding influence on your entire education!
Help of the wise men
Many cities and towns have the monuments, which are popular among the students, as they are believed to help with studying or with passing the exams. For example, in the center of Krakow there is Adam Mitskevich’s monument. Students believe that if you jump on one foot around the monument and repeat that six times, great Polish poet will help you to get a good grade on your exam. In French Sorbonne students ask the great philosopher Michel de Montaigne for help on the exams by rubbing the shoes of his monument. For the same reason the students of Massachusetts University come to the statue of George Eastman and rub his nose with a great hope.
Scream it out
This tradition is popular among the students of various universities and is sometimes called a “primal scream”. The sense is to shout as loud as you can for ten minutes; it usually is done during the time of exams. This tradition not only scares the people who live or pass by the neighborhood and have no idea of what is going on, but is actually quite helpful in reducing stress and calming down the nerves. Even psychologists agree that this simple action has a positive influence on the mental health of the hard-working students.
Food can help
Nuts, especially walnuts, which remind the shape of our brain, as well as chocolate (especially dark one), are known to be helpful in the period when you have to study a lot and get ready for exams. But there also are some traditions, connected with food, that students from different countries have. For example, in Japan students always do their best to have a bar of KitKat with them on the exam. It is done not to give energy from eating chocolate, but because of its name. The thing is that in Japanese “KitKat” sounds similar to “kitto katsu”, which means “we will definitely win”. Not bad at all, right?! Will you consider taking KitKat to your next exam? Another example of a food-related tradition with the game of the words comes from Vietnam. Students from this country will hardly ever eat a banana before the exam. It is explained by the fact that bananas are considered to be very slippery, and “slippery” sounds similar to Vietnamese word that means “failure”. Knowing that, think twice the next time when you would like to eat a banana before an important test!