College graduation may be the happiest time of a students life.  At last, gone were the days of hectic schedules and nowhere-in-the-world examinations.  Thanks to all angels and saints that the dull days of boring lectures and sometimes, sleepy classes are finally over.  Goodbye teachers and classmates too.  The word panic is erased in the vocabulary.  Who would ever think of so much pressures in the world of professionals anyway?  Opps, think again.

After graduation comes the board examination.  Not all courses have it though, like the industrial and computer engineering for example.  But for the rest, they still have to face a major part on their careers.

For some, preparing for the board exam, like taking a review course is only a hassle.  They can do it by themselves.  Others even find a review a first view instead, depicting faces of freshmen wandering through the corridors during opening of classes.  They say that blessed are those who had exerted efforts during their five years or more stay in the university, surely a review would be a review.

Review courses start in June for most and will last for five months before the actual board examinations.  Some centers offer review schedules in November for those who wants to take the May or April exams.  With the span of time, a refresher (the one they termed for series of questions given by the review center) and a pre-board exam are included.  These would help a reviewee know his own standing, how he fared during the previous years and to somehow discern if he really is equipped for the actual test. 

I was once enrolled in a review center.  After five painstaking years of hardwork attending classes, school activities and the likes, I had to go over all my major subjects acquainting myself to all the terms which seem to look new to me again! It was energy consuming and believe me, it required a lot of time and memory too.  I encountered one instructor who said "Never memorize symbols and formulas, remember them".  I didn't immediately get what he meant then.  Isn't the term memorize synonymous to remember?   And he continued, "Commit to your memory not just the symbols involved in a formula, but as well include its importance and what each parameter and variable denotes".

Now I know.  To familiarize myself to Einsteins E = mc², is not only to say that there are E, m and c in it or E is equated to m multiplied to the square of c, but rather say that the total energy (E) is equal to the particle mass (m) multiplied to the square of the speed of light (c).  Thats it!

Encountering long and mind-boggling problems is not anymore strange for engineering students as I was.  Equations vary from the simplest form to the most complicated one - higher subjects call for complex equations usually. 

Some reviewees generally get stuck to the intricacy of varying formulas.  I have known one who had most of his time devoted to memorizing everything -- he was so dead serious on his review that all day and night he had nothing to do but read and read.  As a happy-go-lucky guy in his student years, he thought a very serious review and mental preparation could simply compensate his five years spent on uncertain schooling.  He forgot his meals and never took enough sleep. He had a mental breakdown a month before his exam it was too much labor for him his memory could not just worked properly.  

Review courses teach one how to get ready not just mentally but spiritually and physically as well.  Spiritual readiness involves prayer.  It gives assurance and hope that no matter what the outcome is; always Someone from above helps us to stand strong and never to lose a fight.  That He may grant the gift of knowledge to understand every question and answer it correctly, is something a reviewee should never forget to pray for.  He is the only one who knows what is best for each and everyone.

Physical preparations such as hiking on weekends and indulging into sports like basketball and volleyball help to keep one physically fit and alert.  The review center I was into once had this morning hiking to a church situated on a mountaintop.  We had planned it so as to reach the church in time for the early morning mass.  It was so refreshing a feeling that we somehow forgot all the pressures we got ourselves into.

Almost all the people I know believe that enrolling in a review course minimizes the risks of failing the board exam.  And I believe, yes.  It minimizes but maybe not totally an assurance of passing it.  Take this for example.  He was a serious reviewee, has good scholastic records and was known to be an intelligent guy.  A lot of preparations were done on his five months review.  Yet when the results came out, he failed.  Why? His sole reason was he had been pressured from the start by all the expectations his parents have for him.  It was the cause of his mental block-out.  It was the cause of his cramming. 

I have known some who haven't passed the board exam for just one try.  Yet they now have their professional licenses after the second try because they never lose a single hope.  They were all certain then that someday they would be able to get the licenses they have long dreamed of.  And they did make it!  For every dog has his day.

Now it dawned on me what big difference it is when one is already fit for something.  Rewards always come to the prepared mind and to the deserving individuals.  As the verse goes, if you plant corns, you will reap corns.  You reap what you sow.

A month or two from now a lot of aspiring professionals would be taking the board exam and are all-eager to get their licenses.  Now have you fully shaped yourselves for the coming battle?  Take this: you have painstakingly won a four years, a five years or so fight, and you have no enough reason not to be ready for this next.  Think not of the outcome, for the fact that you have done and given your very best foot on it, is more than enough for you to be always proud of yourself.     

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