Confessions of a GTA: Part 17

I expected to enjoy invigilating undergraduate exams, and to be honest, I did. There is something very satisfying about getting paid to watch other people going through the hell you have lived for three years. One thing I did notice there is a specific pattern to every exam. From a GTA perspective this is pretty much how they go:

15 mins before the exam: Set up

Place all the exam papers out, only to have to turn them all over as finally the lecturers have realised we read the first question through the front page. (Though when you turn them over often you can read the last question through the back page so how this is any different I am not sure…..)

5 mins before the exam: Try to look good in front of your boss

Let the undergrads in and try vaguely to keep them quiet. This is pretty much always unsuccessful but the main thing is to look like you are trying as this is the point the lectures are around.

0-20 mins into the exam: Incompetence

This is the time where some of the more incompetent undergrads realise they have not brought a pen to the exam or that pencil the lecturer told them each and every lecture they would definitely need. Thus you scramble around at the front desk trying to cobble supplies together out of what people have left behind in the room, because all GTAs carry around spare compasses in their pockets all the time, right?

20-70 mins: Boredom

So all the undergrads are here and getting on with it. So what do we do? Well if you are with ‘fun’ GTAs this is where you get stuck into a good game of Pacman or Battleships but ‘fun’ GTAs as a species are pretty rare normally, so this is the point we relive our last three supervisor meetings…

70-90 mins: Toilet rush

This part I really don’t understand. I mean seriously, why can you not last three hours without going to the toilet? How do you make it through a film? You literally have three hours to show everything you have learnt in 1 year and you waste over 8% of this because you drank that litre bottle of water you brought in.

90 mins: Change over the paper

Here for many exams is the changeover point where one set of GTAs is released back to their windowless rooms and others take over. This is also the point where more paper is needed. Fast and lots of it.

90-150 mins: Demand stream

For a second half GTA this is the long slog of never ending toilet trips and paper refills. Great for battle ship/bingo, not so great if all the desks are so close together you have to jog up and down the rows in massively noisy shoes you decide never to wear again. This is also the point the class Question Master (you know who they are) asks you something like: “This question is not specific enough. What does it mean?” Um ok good luck.

150-180 mins: The calm before the storm.

A bit of quiet time to gather yourself to be ready to collect all the papers and count at speed/try not to sleep/`wonder if this is a sped up version of your PhD for your supervisor…

I must confess I suspect it is.