Six Tips to Survive Finals
Finals week is here -ack! Okay, I don’t actually have an in-class final until Thursday, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t had my fair share of bad years for finals. Conquering finals can make or break your grade if you’re on the line, so today, I’m sharing six tips to survive finals, writing papers, and taking care of yourself during this hectic week.
1. Pace Yourself: I’m a firm believer in trying to pace yourself in everything you do. Am I the best example of doing it? No, but I still try. Don’t make yourself study for hours on end with no break. Don’t try to cram it all in at once. It won’t help you at all.
2. Color Code: Make a key for yourself on the things you need to study, for instance, red can be “absolutely need to study”, blue can be “need to refresh once or twice”, etc. You’ll know what you know when you look at your study materials. The color coding will help when you panic and think “what do I actually know!?”
3. Flash cards: If you have a big vocabulary list, this can take a while to do – but you retain more information when you write it down, as opposed to typing it. I take all my notes handwritten in class because of this.
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4. Water: I read somewhere that when you’re studying all night, drink lots of water because you’ll need to get up and go to the bathroom a lot. And it makes sense. If you’re constantly getting up to walk to the bathroom and walk back when you’re done, you sure aren’t sitting around sleeping.
5. SLEEP: I honestly don’t get the idea of an all-nighter. Your body is going to crash, and you’ll be less likely to remember everything you studied while you were up all night anyways. During finals, I’ll usually stay up half an hour or an hour later than normal, but no more than that.
6. Pack your back the night before: If you’re planning to sleep before finals, gather your things you need before hand, whether it’s a jacket, a scantron or pencil. I usually bring everything I take on the first day and every day, just to be safe.
All these tips are great pointers, but remember, they aren’t cut in stone, you need to be able to adapt them (and any set of tips) to work for you! Good luck to everyone tackling finals this week!