Online Reporter
Latwell Nyangu
Youth Interactive Writer
While exams are intended as milestones of academic achievement, they often become silent battlegrounds where students wrestle not only with questions on exam scripts but also with internal doubts, fears and expectations.
Exam season never announces itself loudly. It doesn’t need to.
It creeps in quietly.
Even the most prepared students are not immune to the crushing expectations that accompany exams. This week, I am in the shoes once again of students when it comes to exam time.
Some institutions are in exam mode, and students will be starting to write next week.
All the best to everyone who is sitting for the exam. Many at times, students hate this moment, but exams are there in every part of life.
The pressure is not always about failure, it is often about the fear of not meeting expectations, including those of parents, lecturers, friends, or oneself. It is the fear of underperforming, of not living up to the hours of study, or of not securing a future that seems to hinge on high grades.
Days before the exam, many students begin to experience a spike in anxiety levels.
Some suffer from sleepless nights, appetite changes, and constant fatigue. Others may find themselves trapped in a cycle of overthinking, where every potential question becomes a mental hurdle.
There is a persistent hum of worry that drowns out creativity and critical thinking, key components of actual learning. WhatsApp groups, which are always filled with jokes, are turned into notes-sharing.
This is the season of silent pressure, an invisible weight that settles on every shoulder, some heavier than others. For many students, the pressure isn’t just about passing or failing, it’s about meeting expectations. Parents, lecturers, and perhaps worst of all, themselves, you have to do well, comes in the voices of those around you.
Some adapt by burying themselves in notes and revision plans.
Their days become a routine of study-eat-study-sleep-repeat.
Others find solace in group studies, sometimes more about collective anxiety than collective learning.
It has become a common feature that some students rely on caffeine, others on midnight walks, some on energy drinks.
And many just pretend to have it together while quietly drowning inside. Oddly enough, stress becomes a badge of honour.
Sometimes, if some students appear too calm, people assume they are not taking things seriously.
If you admit you are struggling, you risk being seen as weak.
One thing that I understand, exams give students torrid times.
The pressure is subtle but relentless. Students learn to live with it, adapt to it, and even normalise it. But normalisation doesn’t mean it’s healthy. What we often forget is that beneath this quiet chaos are real and focused students, each carrying their own stories, struggles, and silent battles.
Not every student is just trying to get an ‘A’. Some are trying to prove they are not a failure. Some are trying to fulfil dreams not even theirs.
Some are just trying to survive.
So, if you are a student reading this, breathe. It’s okay to feel overwhelmed.
It’s okay to take a break. Your worth is not defined by a number on a paper.
Exams may test memory, but they also reveal flexibility.
And that, perhaps, is the most underrated result of all.
The exam stress starts at college and at home. Lecturers have very high expectations of their students and can set target levels too high.
They think they are doing a great thing by showing students what they consider them to be capable of but in a way, they are doing the opposite in many cases.
The majority of students that I have spoken to on this subject feel that their targets are unrealistic and that they may as well just give up because they won’t achieve them.
The result is students who lose confidence and lack in belief that they can achieve.
At home also, all parents want their children to achieve and do well.
Maybe because they did not have the greatest of start themselves or maybe because they were a high-flying achiever and have an expectation that their child should be the same.
Whatever the case, the pressure added by parents increases the already stressed experience the student is having in college.
Sometimes parents judge their parenting success and ability on how well their child is doing in school not on how happy and balanced their child is and how easily they can cope with life situations.
Every parent wants their college-going children to be as bright as their neighbours, but at what cost to the child’s mental health?
I have recently been watching some students who were suffering from extreme anxiety and stress.
Some parents are lovely people and can do anything for their children, but sometimes the results won’t be welcoming.
Expecting children to perform to standards that are based on someone’s opinion of what they think someone needs to know to get on in the world is unfair.
The diversity of talent within us all means that a set standard of education will never work.
This needs to coincide with an awakening of parents to how they ‘programme’ their children through life.
If you judge a fish by its lack of ability to climb a tree, you miss the beauty in that animal and overlook its amazing range of talent.
Others can do good, but you can do the best.
Until we meet for a toast!
Feedback: nyangu.latwell27 @gmail.com
