Finals period, the most dreaded part of any college career, is lurking around the corner. It’s hard to find someone who looks forward to writing 12-page papers, studying for cumulative exams, and calling the library their home, but you don’t need to make finals period more miserable than it needs to be! Studying for finals can be just plain miserable when you have to spend warm spring days in the library and pull all-nighters. But HC has found some tips and tricks to make this crunch time more tolerable.
Take study breaks
Studying consistently for hours on end can get pretty tiring, and there comes a point when your brain just needs a break. When you’ve been working hard for a while, take a break for 20 minutes or so to let yourself unwind, even if it’s just to check Facebook or surf the Internet. You can also sign up for HC’s Study Breaks, which are email newsletters with articles, giveaways, and funny videos that get sent out each school night. The goal is to give your mind a moment to relax so you can go back to studying with fresh eyes.
Another great way to utilize study breaks is to plan small events with your friends. Lily, a collegiette at Wesleyan University, hosts tea parties in her dorm room during reading period and finals period to help herself and her friends relax and recharge. During her tea parties, Lily opens her room for friends to stop by at their leisure, drink some tea, have an interesting conversation, or even just vent about something that’s on their mind. With this low-key, welcoming setting, they can all forget about their work for a while until they are ready to go back to studying at full force.
“I definitely recommend throwing some sort of small event so that there’s something to look forward to during your stressful week,” Lily says. “Not only does it let you cool off a bit, but it’s a great way to meet new people and catch up with friends who’ve buried themselves in the corner of a library for several days at a time!”
Taking a break that gets you moving is another way to fight the tedious process of studying. When in the middle of writing a long paper, Kendall Croutier from Boston University would walk to the nearby ice cream store to grab a treat with her friends. Afterwards, they would burn off the calories (and the stress!) by having a dance party with everyone in her room. The combination of getting fresh air and getting loose by dancing lets her get reenergized so she can finish her studying strong.
Change your location
Sitting in a silent area between rows upon rows of books that no one has touched in years would make anyone go crazy, so don’t confine yourself to the library for all of your finals studying. Georgie, a student at the University of Exeter, likes to switch things up and alternate her study locations. One of her preferred study spaces is a café. The atmosphere of a café or a coffee shop is usually calm and relaxed, in contrast to the library, which can be a breeding ground for stress.
Georgie finds the café environment to be much more conducive for productive studying. “Having just the right level of background noise is a refreshing change from the clinically quiet library,” she says. “And the proximity of good coffee and cakes is always a bonus!” Other alternate study locations include study lounges on campus, your room, a bookstore, and a park if it’s nice outside.
Treat yourself
When you’re trying to make it through finals week, sometimes you just need to give yourself an extra push to keep studying—and a little bribery goes a long way! If there is something that you can’t live without, like coffee, then you can use this to motivate yourself to study. Since mixed coffee drinks can be pretty expensive, make yourself a deal: when you study for a certain amount of hours, you can buy that venti coffee with extra espresso shots and syrup from Starbucks.
Social media is also a great incentive for people who like to check Facebook, Twitter, or another site multiple times through the day. Megan Tucker, a collegiette from Boston University, makes a to-do list with everything that she needs to accomplish, and when she crosses a few things off, she lets herself check one of her social media accounts.
Find something that makes you happy or can put you in a good mood, and use that to your advantage when studying. Even if it’s something little, like buying fancy colored pens for every study guide you write or treating yourself to your favorite dessert after a long day of studying, these positive actions can go a long way. Studying organic chemistry might not be very fun, but when you tell yourself you can paint your nails a new color after reading a few chapters, then that puts an exciting spin on it!
Team up
It’s hard to just sit in a quiet room by yourself and stare at your notes. If you’ve made all the flash cards and study cards that you could ever imagine but you’re still looking for another way to help your studying, then bring in some backup! Studying with friends or classmates can be a great way help you study, even through the toughest subjects. If you’re studying with a group, you can turn to someone for help when you get stuck on a question. In reverse, if someone else needs help, then you can jump in and explain the concept yourself, which will probably help you just as much—often teaching information to others helps you understand and remember it better yourself.
There can be some negatives to studying with friends, like getting distracted and spending an hour talking about the latest Kim Kardashian drama instead of American history. To prevent this from happening, set a schedule for your group. Spend 50 minutes studying, then 10 minutes chatting about the latest gossip. When the hour is up, go back to the books.
Finding the right study group can make the most dismal finals schedule much more bearable because it gives you a support base. Everyone is going through the same situation, so you all can help each other make it through! And this also gives you the chance to make new friends with classmates or become closer with your current friends.
Finals are an inevitable part of college, and although it’s usually played up to be an unbearably miserable experience, you have options to make it more enjoyable. Find a study trick that works for you, whether that means organizing a meet-up with your friends or buying yourself a new color of nail polish. Do your best studying and working hard during the homestretch of college before summer, and have some fun in the process, too!