Finals Week!! The bane of every college student’s existence. So much of your grade depends on one test or one project or one presentation that mass stress, and mass panic, ensue. Instead of losing your mind, keep calm and study on this finals season with these tips.
1. Make a list of what you have to do. Break each class down into specific chapters to study, break each paper down into sections. Be specific!! And most importantly start early!! There’s no way you can cram your entire physics class into three days before the exam and expect to do well. A week or two before finals week study a chapter a day or write a page of a paper a day. Having a specific list of things you need to do each day will help you stay focused and feel much less overwhelmed.
2. Put gym time on the list!! Finals week is incredibly stressful and the best way to de-stress is to exercise. You don’t need to become a gym rat but take time to go on a walk or do pilates or try to stick to your normal workout routine as much as possible. Putting it on your list of things to do along with your studying for the day will help you make sure you take time to exercise.
3. Don’t be fooled by all of the free time! Not having classes for the first time all semester makes it seem like you have all of the time in the world, the weather is nice, your friends all around all the time…but sleeping in and then shopping and then a walk along the canal quickly eats up your day and leaves no time for studying. Make sure you study first and then spend time with your friends.
4. Get plenty of sleep!! Believe it or not, coffee is not really a substitute for sleep. You’ll be much more awake and focused after a good nights sleep than after a few hours and four cups of coffee before the exam.
5. Cramming doesn’t help. There comes a point where you just need to let it go. You’ll know more than you think you do. Cramming just makes you more anxious and more worried so you’ll end up doing worse on the exam. The night before the test, do something relaxing like going out to dinner with your friends or watching a movie.
6. Study in a different location than you normally do. Sometime when you’ve been studying in your room for awhile it’s easy to hang out with your friends or turn on Netflix or come up with a million other things that need to be done other than studying. By going to the library or a coffee shop or that cool little study room in the English department, you take away distractions like that. Moving to a different place than you normally study helps you focus and just study.
7. Have some inspiration to keep you centered. Meditate, hang pictures of Jake Gyllenhall all over your walls, put an inspirational quote on your mirror, positive self-talk before you take an exam, listen to your work out playlist before you sit for the exam, do yoga, practice meridian tapping, get a massage, cover your notebooks in Ryan Gosling “Hey Girl” memes…whatever works for you!! A positive attitude is nearly as important as how well you know the material when you into sit for an exam.
