This is my first year here at the University of Manitoba, and I must say that I am not very satisfied with the education system here. Out of eight courses that I've taken so far, only two of them did not have exam-based testing, with the rest of the courses, including the ones I am taking now for psychology, are all based on standardized timed exams, I found my learning here to be superficial, and not genuine, I found myself only trying to memorize all of the many specific facts of the assigned lectures and textbook material just to get a good grade on the exams and then forget about everything that I have memorized, this goes for open book exams too, as I don't have time to search through my notes for every single answer. I am very stressed, and anxious about my experience here, because of the exams. Exams have been taking a heavy toll on my mental health, and have left me dealing with intense migraines, they impose pressure and drain me of my energy, getting me to think about nothing except of the grade I will receive, forcing me to study for hours, and leaving in me no interest to learn. Not only exams are very difficult to prepare for, some of the professors do not specify what exactly must we learn for the exams, and instead say things like: "This could be on the exam." Or "Everything can be testable." e.g. Studying 5-7 assigned pages worth of material only for a 35-question exam (notes made according to the assigned material can take up 20-30 pages to re-read and study, since I don't know what exactly is and what's not on the exam, and end up studying everything out of worry). In addition, some professors even choose to put trick questions on exams, or "choose the best answer" types of questions, which are confusing to me at times. Furthermore, I find myself trying to answer questions as quickly as possible before the time limit runs out, how can I have time to think, if all that exams expect from me is to have every answer memorized at the top of my head, and quickly answer questions? (Especially if some questions are quite wordy). All I am seeing from these exams is ambiguity, uncertainty, pressure with time limit, and heavy stress with studying. I want to ask of you to please omit the exams, especially for psychology, and replace them with writing-based assignments that give me freedom, and many different choices on what topics to write about that correlate to the subject matter, assignments that give opportunity for me to truly learn the material, to have interest in learning, and apply my critical thinking, my knowledge, proposals, and ideas onto the assignments. In addition, assignments allow me to stretch them out for a fair amount of time. I find writing-based assignments to truly test my thinking, and allow me to apply my knowledge, in addition, allowing me to engage in the learning itself. Because it's such a shame that while I'm still naturally learning some interesting material from the textbooks, it all goes to waste when I know that all I am really doing is forcefully trying to cram lots of information and preparing myself for a standardized exam, which is why I don't have enjoyment when reading; it is always forced, with the desire to finish chapters as quickly as possible just to not miss anything when taking notes. There can be so much more potential for me to learn and distribute that knowledge in a genuine way, that will allow me to write at a meaningful and non-rushed pace about what I learned, by introducing writing assignments instead of exams.