TURKISH STUDENTS PREPARE FOR STRESSFUL EXAM

Shaking, sweating hands, trembling and fainting are all symptoms of a stressed body. These are not unusual experiences for Turkish teenagers, especially when it comes time to take the yearly university entrance exam being held this Sunday.

“I want to enter an engineering department, but I guess I will not be placed because they are changing the exam system all the time,” said Onur Ülgen, a student in Istanbul in the last grade of high school who will sit Sunday’s exam. Those concerns were the first he mentioned when recently asked about the exam and his future expectations by the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review.

Approximately 1.5 million young people who will enter the exam are faced with similar concerns. Like many others, Ülgen said the exam will determine the rest of his life and consequently feels the fear of failure and the fatigue of studying non-stop.

The exam, which was previously held at the end of the academic year in June, has changed this year and the students will be taking two major exams. Ülgen said he will leave his house in Bahçeşehir district at 8 a.m. for his exam in the Gaziosmanpaşa district.

Ülgen feels anxious, depressed and helpless when he thinks about the exam. “They make us take an exam which will determine everything in our lives. A momentary mistake because of excitement and stress will put my whole life’s plan in danger,” said Ülgen, who believed that taking exams at the end of each year during high school could be an option to replace the current system.

The student began receiving psychological support five months ago after being encouraged by his family and teachers. “I was nervous and aggressive all the time. I had dizziness, nausea and felt sick all the time. Then I went to psychiatrist.”

Developmental psychologist Serdar Değirmencioğlu said the system creates young people who are too focused on entrance exams. “All the social sciences, including educational sciences, say that this system is wrong for them. This society has to provide what young people deserve, but instead they have to deal with what the society imposes upon them,” said Değirmencioğlu, also co-producer of a documentary film about the university entrance exam, “3 Hours: An ÖSS Documentary.”

After the exam, even students placed in universities are not content, according to academics.

Can Candan, an academic from Boğaziçi University and co-producer of the documentary, said many first-year university students do not know what they want to do in the future.

“They are tired, torn and young people who barely know themselves,” he said.

Candan told the Daily News that these young people take the exam as a matter of life and death and only a few can receive the support to direct their career in high school.

Family pressure

High school teachers also agree that the exam causes depression, and when family pressure is added, the youngsters are under pressure more than they can handle alone.

“Most families, especially those with a high income, believe that they can make their son or daughter enter any university they want if they pay enough money for their education,” said Ercan Balıkçı, a teacher at a “dersane,” a private educational institution that provides training for the exam in Turkey.

He said any student has the capacity to succeed with good education and work ethic, but families believe they can solve anything with money.

Although Ülgen said his family supported him and told him his health was more important than the exam, his family’s investment in his education still increased the pressure.

He said if he fails the exam, he would feel embarrassed in front of his family, which is sending him to a private high school and a dersane. “I think, I should at least enter a good public university rather than a private one,” said Ülgen, who wants to make a contribution in his family’s spending.

Another reason why he fears failing the exam is his family’s attitude. “They are very ambitious. They do not want to accept failure. Everyone in my family has been successful so far, such as my aunt,” said Ülgen.

Balıkçı said preparations for the exam include listening to his teacher and re-examining material at home. But many students do not have time at home to do this. “Their schedules are full with school first, and then dersane, and then private tutors at home. They have no time to breathe.”

Ülgen said he would fall asleep as soon as he went home for past two months. He goes to the dersane after school, at 3 p.m. on weekdays and studies at the dersane on weekends.

Some high school students, on the other hand, try not to make the exam the central focus of their lives and are lucky to receive support from their families.

Can Necefbaş, a student who will take the exam on Sunday, told the Daily News he takes time to relax with his hobbies. He sings in a band at school but has not given up on music to study for the test.

He said he started studying for the exam three months ago, adding that he would not have been able to sit the exam if he had begun studying a year ago, like some students do.

“I recommend my peers to continue doing what makes them happy and not give up their passions because of the exam,” he said, adding that music will always remain part of his life.

Both Ülgen and Necefbaş believe their time is wasted because of the stress and hours spent studying for the exam. They believe they would spend more time with friends, have more fun without feeling guilty, and would have more time for their passions, like music, if the exam did not exist.