Have you ever sailed through your assignments and bagged several A’s only to get crushed by a final exam? That was me, for the entirety of poly. I was great at practical work but my kryptonite has always been exams. I hated that exams, which held the bulk of our grades for certain modules, defined our performance.

Exams birthed an education system whereby students viewed studying as a series of successive goals — not a place you ask questions and learn from your peers. If you’re not graded for it, why bother working hard on it? If this chapter is not tested, why bother reading and memorising it? The fact that I ever scored 100/100 for a Dreamweaver test in poly proves that it is not my inability to work under pressure — I simply never saw the point in mugging for the sole purpose of memorising those notes then moving on thereafter.

As Albert Einstein famously said, “But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

I know people who dropped out of Junior College (JC) or attended private institutions after A-Level exams but eventually excelled in their university course. The issue they faced was not their capability but that the performance of their entire two years in JC was being graded with one large final exam.

But when it comes to communication courses like the Bachelor of Communication I took at The University of Newcastle, Australia, are exams truly the best way of grading our performance? I would rather my success be measured by ongoing assessments, which I believe are closer to what my appraisal at work would be based on.

With this in mind, one of the first things I asked the course consultant over at PSB Academy when I was applying for universities was how The University of Newcastle, Australia graded its students. Imagine my relief to hear that other than some quizzes (I sat for a total of 2 during my two years there), there were absolutely no exams and final grades were derived from continual assessments.

I heaved another sigh of relief when I learnt that The University of Newcastle, Australia doesn’t grade students on a bell curve. I never liked that idea — bell curves create an air of animosity amongst students, who are forced to pit against each other with the knowledge that his failure will be my success.

Most of my assessments during my 6 trimesters at The University of Newcastle, Australia were:

• Written assignment (essays, news features, press releases)
• Project work (with final assignments being either a proposal and/or presentation)
• Production (shooting and editing of videos)
• MCQ quizzes
• Class participation

The shift away from traditional exams paved the way for a smoother transition between studying and being in a full-time job which, in my opinion, is what universities should be preparing you for.

Journalism, one of the final modules I had to take in university, was particularly challenging. Grading consisted of a class presentation, weekly blog posts based on the different elements of Journalism, and a final news story (in any format of my choice: written work, audio story/interview, video story/interview) with an actual journalist. Not only does the module test our proficiency and depth of knowledge of the journalism industry, but we also needed to be resourceful to secure an interviewee for our final assignment.

I found the proficiency and resourcefulness applicable to the working world as well — when I was freelancing as a writer, I had to do everything on my own, from sourcing for interviewees to crafting a house style guide so my tone and formatting are kept consistent. These are beneficial skills that exams can never teach.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not discounting the merits of exams. After all, it is a quick and easy way of gauging one’s performance. Although the media industry is known for being competitive, at the end of the day, we formed study groups to help each other out. In my experience though, I typically only started studying a few days prior to the papers, and usually forgot most of the things I memorised the moment I stepped out of that exam hall and hardly went back to look at them.

In comparison, I was motivated to work hard consistently throughout the trimester to ensure that my grades don’t slip. I was also given the space to learn at my own pace, consult lecturers for issues I felt strongly about and, through this, developed crucial critical thinking skills.

For example, for one of my Communication and Discourse assessments, we had to visit a bustling site to observe, well, communication and discourse (duh) between people, analysing the social relationships, material culture, power-play etc. It was one of my favourite assessments as it provided hands-on learning from first-hand experience.

Some people excel in exams, some people hate the traditional model of mugging for exams. In my case, I chose The University of Newcastle, Australia as it suited what I was looking for — assessments that encourage students to apply theories to practical situations instead of testing students based on how well they memorised theories.

If you’d like to learn more about my experience at The University of Newcastle, Australia, I will be sharing more at the PSB Academy Open House, held online on 4 April 2020.

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