Finals Week sounds stressful and scary wherever you are in the world, but at Boston University Metropolitan College, you will be more than fine. Teachers make sure that you will be comfortable during exams and they will not hand out surprise tests or questions that you have never seen during class. My final exams were just fine, as I managed to go through them without major difficulties.
The great thing about American universities in general is that they offer huge libraries where you can see other students putting their social life on hold for a week to study.
The great thing about American universities in general is that they offer huge libraries where you can see other students putting their social life on hold for a week to study.
Back in France, public universities have beautiful and often historical libraries, but in my business school there is not that type of building, so I usually study at home. I mostly used the BU libraries for group projects, considered as final exams for some classes. At the George Sherman Union library on campus, there are many study rooms where people can write stuff on boards and discuss their project without disturbing the rest of the building. The advantage of the GSU library is the food court where you can eat lunch at Panda Express or grab lunch at Starbucks to just take a break and forget about finals for a minute.
As I said, there were a few group projects considered as finals in some of my classes. You can expect to have very exciting and intriguing subjects – in a good way of course. My project management teacher told us right from the beginning that our main project would be to set up a food truck using the tools we have learned in class. In the end, it was a great experience – as many students came from different countries, the food trucks all had their own twists and special foods that one would not particularly expect in a food truck! People were also getting creative and bringing their country’s touch into the name of their food truck. Ours was called “Péché Mignon” – “guilty pleasure” in French - as most of our team was French:
As I said, there were a few group projects considered as finals in some of my classes. You can expect to have very exciting and intriguing subjects – in a good way of course. My project management teacher told us right from the beginning that our main project would be to set up a food truck using the tools we have learned in class. In the end, it was a great experience – as many students came from different countries, the food trucks all had their own twists and special foods that one would not particularly expect in a food truck! People were also getting creative and bringing their country’s touch into the name of their food truck. Ours was called “Péché Mignon” – “guilty pleasure” in French - as most of our team was French:
Another very interesting project was during our International Marketing class where we had to choose a country and the teacher would then choose for us a product that is not sold there for religious, political, legal issues, etc. For example, selling alcohol in a Muslim country or tanning beds in an African country. You could either go for it, or explain why you would not sell this product. This exercise was not easy because we had to really dig deep and look for precise pieces of information in order to be clear and not make any mistakes.
Those group projects were also an occasion to work with other foreign students. Presenting in English is not easy, but I always feel more comfortable in this language as my classes in France have been in English for two years, and all of the presentations I did there were in English, as well. However, it is an exercise that demands a lot of concentration because you have to think about making grammatically correct sentences, but also present the content of your project as clearly as possible! I also worked on my body language in an effort to engage with the audience. Language is a barrier inside the team project, but also outside. You have to make yourself understandable, and body language helps a lot and will help capture people’s attention.
To sum up, do not stress over finals because you will be well-prepared during classes and you won’t find unexpected tricky questions.
Those group projects were also an occasion to work with other foreign students. Presenting in English is not easy, but I always feel more comfortable in this language as my classes in France have been in English for two years, and all of the presentations I did there were in English, as well. However, it is an exercise that demands a lot of concentration because you have to think about making grammatically correct sentences, but also present the content of your project as clearly as possible! I also worked on my body language in an effort to engage with the audience. Language is a barrier inside the team project, but also outside. You have to make yourself understandable, and body language helps a lot and will help capture people’s attention.
To sum up, do not stress over finals because you will be well-prepared during classes and you won’t find unexpected tricky questions.
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