Exams
The first block in the semester has past and the exams are over. I have followed two courses within the first block. The learning methods in Denmark do not differ a lot from those in the Netherlands. At least, that what I have experienced. My courses consisted of lectures and tutorials. I have been told that there would be a lot more groups work in the Danish education. I have not experienced more than I am used to, but I didn’t had any practical work either in this block. Maybe I will have more group work in my next courses.
There are large differences in the manner of examination of the courses. It is possible to have a normal written exam, but you can also have an oral exam. For my courses, both exams were oral exams. The courses contained a lot of calculation work, so I found it strange that there would be oral exams. But I have noticed it is more important to understand the formulas and what it means for the exam, than do calculations with the formulas. The calculation are already done at the tutorials. Of course the oral exam is very nerve wrecking. It can be compared with a presentation of 20 minutes, where you talk about the content of the whole course. Of course, the whole content of the course is too much to talk about. I had to prepare everything, but at the exam one, out of eight, question was picked to present. The professor is very nice during the exam, at least if you were present in class. If you haven’t been to class at all, they can ask very hard question during the exam.
In my opinion an oral exam has also benefits, next to the fact that it is nerve wrecking (at least for me). First of all, you immediately know your grade. So if you think the exam went bad, you know immediately if you passed. Secondly, you get some help during the exam. If you talk about the wrong things, they ask questions to guide you to the right subject. That way you have a higher change to get a better grade. Lastly, it only takes 20 minutes to do the exam instead of the normal three ours for the written exam. The last point only counts with professors who pay attention to the time. I had one of the exams that lasted 45 minutes, which, I can tell you, was not nice.