Finals week is a horrible, no good, dirty, rotten time of year. Unfortunately for us, we have to experience it THREE crazy times a year. Though it will probably be a stressful time no matter what, here are a few tips to make it a bit easier.
1. Find somewhere where you won’t be distracted… or tempted by it!
This is the part where I tell you to be honest. If you sit in your room, next to your nice, warm bed, are you really not going to be tempted to climb in and stay there for the rest of the night? I would be. Sometimes we just have to remove the temptation. If you’re going to be tempted to chat with your friends if they’re all around you, you probably shouldn’t study with them in the room either. Finals are made a million times more stressful when we realize that the week hasn’t been have as productive as we expected them to be!!! Don’t put yourself in a situation where you talked about the new episode of Glee instead of studying.
2. Know who you can, and can’t, study with.
Some friends are awesome study buddies- they are motivated and quiet and it rubs off! But others want nothing more than to interrupt you five minutes with an irrelevant realization as they sat there playing with fuckyounouns.com. That friend (who is typically me!) is probably not the study buddy for you, or a library only study buddy.
3. Start early and plan well
The sooner you start studying, the better you’ll remember the material and the less stressed you’ll feel when it’s the night before the exam! Try to make a reading/finals week schedule and keep yourself on track. With all that time, you don’t even have to have too many hours a day spent with your head in the books.
4. SLEEP
This one may seem self explanatory, but let’s be honest, none of us sleep enough. The problem with that is how much of a difference sleep can make in your ability to focus when you do finally get around to studying. It’s worth studying earlier and getting to bed sooner.
5. Realize that you can only do what you can while taking care of yourself and your responsibilities
We Northwestern students have a terrible tendency to believe that if we didn’t pull all nighters all week for an exam, we didn’t work hard enough. The fact of the matter is, it’s not worth jeopardizing your health or sanity, for that matter, to study. If you combine all the elements I’ve just given you, there should be more than enough time to take care of everything.
Though reading and finals week throw a lot our ways, don’t fret! You will do your best and blow your exams out of the water! GOOD LUCK NU!