Everybody's Free (To Wear Sub Fusc)

Ladies and gentlemen of the class of 99: wear sub fusc.
If I could offer you one tip for Finals, sub fusc would be it.
The wearing of sub fusc is a required by the Proctors, whereas the rest of
my advice has no basis more reliable than my own inane ramblings.
I will regurgitate these ramblings now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh never mind. You will not
enjoy the power and beauty of your youth until you've finished. But trust
me - in a few weeks you'll look back and realise in a way you can't grasp
now how much time you spent revising and how tedious it really was.

You are not as dim as you imagine.

Don't panic about Finals. Or panic, but know that panicing is as effective
as trying to write essays by starting a Mexican wave in Schools. The real
troubles are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, like
leaving a tenner in your pocket while getting trashed.

Do one thing every exam that scares you. Write.

Don't be reckless with your answers, don't put up with examiners who are
reckless in setting questions.

Revise.

Don't waste your time on jealousy. Some people are clever, some people are
not so clever. The exams are long and in the end, they're only with a
couple of hundred people out of the entire population.

Remember questions you managed to answer. Forget the blunders. If you
suceed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your good luck cards, throw away your exam papers.

Breathe.

Don't feel guilty if you don't know which questions to answer. Some of the
cleverest peole I know didn't know at 21 which questions to answer. Some
of the tutors I know still don't.

Get plenty of sleep.

Be kind your your brain. You'll miss it when it's gone.

Maybe you'll pass, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll get a first, maybe you
won't. Maybe you'll become a Jobseeker, maybe you'll join the SCR.
Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself
either. Your answers are half chance. So are everybody else's.

Enjoy your alcohol. Drink it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it, or
of what other people think of it. It's the greatest substance you'll ever
abuse.

Write, even if you have nowhere to do it but your exam desk. Read the
questions, even if you don't answer them. Do not read other people's
answers. They will only get you sent down.

Get to know your tutors. You never know when they'll buy you drinks.

Be nice to older people doing your subject. They're the best source of
answers
to questions and the people most likely to buy you champagne when you
finish.

Understand that knowledge comes and goes, but with a few facts you should
hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps of knowledge and understanding
because the closer you get, the more questions you can answer.

Lie on the quad once, but leave before it makes you brown.

Sit in the JCR once, but leave before the Simpsons comes on.

Punt.

Accept certain inalienable truths: scholars will have sleeves,
exhibitioners will be bitter and you, too, will finish, and when you
do, you'll fantasize that when you sat Finals, examiners were reasonable,
questions were answerable and people prepared properly for their exams.
Prepare properly for your exams.

Don't mess too much with your gown, or by the time you've finished you
won't be able to sell it second hand.

Be careful whose revision classes you attend, but be patient with those
that give them. Revision classes are a form of nostalgia. Giving them is a
way of fishing past papers from the filing cabinet, dusting them off,
tippexing over the hard parts and presenting them as something useful.

But trust me on the sub fusc.