Comment by anal_reactor

> I was completely flabbergasted because, to me, discussing "What questions did you have?" was always part of the collaboration between students

When I was a student, professors maintained a public archive of past exams. The reason was obvious: next time the questions would be different, and memorizing past answers wouldn't help you if you don't understand the core ideas being taught. Then I took part in an exchange program and went to some shit-tier uni and I realized that collaboration was explicitly forbidden because professors would usually ask questions along "what was on slide 54". My favorite part was when professor said "I can't publish the slides online because they're stolen from another professor but you can buy them in the faculcy's shop".

My uni maintained a giant presence on Facebook - we'd share a lot of information, and the most popular group was "easy courses" for students who wanted to graduate but couldn't afford a difficult elective course.

The exchange uni had none of that. Literally no community, no collaboration, nothing. It's astonishing.

BTW regarding the stream of consciousness - I distinctly remember taking an exam and doing my best to force my brain to think about the exam questions, rather than porn I had been watching the previous day.