AU-students on new exam hall: "Cold and uninspiring"
The first exam season at the new AU Exam Hall in Lisbjerg is well underway. Students’ initial impressions highlight a contrast: while the building’s practical facilities are running smoothly, many describe the atmosphere as cold and uninspiring.
Hundreds of students found their way to the AU Exam Hall on Ib Spang Olsensgade in Lisbjerg to sit their written exams. After a recently completed exam, Omnibus meets a group of second-semester Sports Science students in front of the entrance.
“It’s cold and uninspiring,” Jonas Klos says without hesitation when the group is asked about their overall impression of the Exam Hall. He does come up with a solution, however:
“A house plant or a painting wouldn’t hurt,” he adds.
A house plant or a painting wouldn’t hurt.
Although the aesthetic features are not to every student’s liking, the practical aspects fare better:
“The practical facilities work,” William Vidar says. That covers toilet facilities, lighting, acoustics and laptop charging.
Students distrust public transport
However, not all the practicalities work perfectly. The group had arrived by car at the Exam Hall at 8:45, although their exam didn’t start until 10:00.
At that point, the parking lot was already ‘pretty full’ and they’ve heard from other students that they had to park near the light rail stop ‘Klokhøjen,’ 1.5 kilometres away, or by the padel centre further down the road.
Sofie Hundebøll explains that they chose to drive there because they didn’t trust public transport, despite the start time for exams being pushed back by one hour from 9:00 to 10:00 to ease the challenges with capacity.
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The group also points out that it’s frustrating that the exam hall is located so far away, referring to the more than 10-kilometre journey to and from Aarhus city centre.
No change in performance, but transport adds stress
Transport back and forth is generally something that worries students. This wasn’t a concern for BSS dean Thomas Pallesen, who in an opinion piece to Omnibus calls the transport to the Exam Hall ‘very efficient and expresses that the hall provides students with the ‘best possible opportunity to showcase what they have learned at the university.’
The Sports Science students say that, all things considered, the exam hall doesn’t affect their performance: they neither do better nor worse than usual. However, they acknowledge that transport-related stress and the need for some students to wake up earlier to get to Lisbjerg could negatively impact some students.
This text is machine translated and post-edited by Cecillia Jensen.