Aside from my mini personal victory, I’m freaking out about finals.
To me, finals are a big deal. They are practically our last chance to do well in a class, and if I don’t do well on all of my finals, my GPA is seriously going to go through an extreme amount of pain.
There is a lot of pressure to do well on a final. If you’re like me and you’re leaving everything to the last minute, there’s even more pressure to study massive amounts of information in a matter of a couple of days.I’m such a mess.
Not only that, but every time I bump into my friends at the library when I’m about to study, they compelled to tell me their final schedules and how freaked out they are, which doesn’t help my situation at all.
You see, things were a tad different in high school.
First of all, finals were important for us, but finals didn’t happen until the end of the school year, specifically during the summer.
Second of all, we still had the same classes the semester after winter break, which meant we still had time to raise our grades before the end of the school year, which took off a lot of pressure from the midterms.
In college, when the semester is over, it’s over. There are no more chances to do better in a class except for the final. I’m already an emotional wreck whenever I think about my astronomy final.
On top of that, the material covered in a college course is a lot more than what the teachers covered back in my high school days.
Since it's been a little tough to take a breather because I'm so stressed out, I figured I'd pass along some tips that have been past along to me.
- Prioritize your studies according to the order of your finals: This is something I find very helpful whenever I have tried to study for finals. The main thing you have to do is to try to study for the first final you are going to take. For example, the first final I’m taking is math... meaning that right now, I’m cramming up all of those logarithm rules I learned last week. The second final I’m taking is French, which I’ll study for during the weekend.
- Ask your professors all of the last minute questions this week: Don’t wait until the night before your final to send your teacher an e-mail and ask him or her for help. If you have questions and you don’t understand something... by all means, ask away!
- Study groups are the "in" thing to do: Get a group of friends together and hit up your local Barnes & Noble or coffee shop. It is an efficient way of learning the material quickly and you get to bond with your fellow classmates.
- Three words: try to sleep: A common misconception with college students — especially freshmen — is that in order to do well on your finals, you have to stay up all night and cram everything up in one sitting. This is not true. Our bodies need rest, and if we just keep working and studying like maniacs, our brains will be so tired that all the information we retained will be gone by the time we start writing out our names on our tests. Finals are important, but so is our health. Make sure you schedule in some sleep.
- Take a deep breath: What’s the worst thing that could happen if you don’t do that well on your final? Try to relax and take breaks between long study sessions. If you’ve paid attention in class, then you should be OK. If not.. well... there’s always next semester.
And for your viewing pleasure, watch this:
Good luck with finals!
4 comments:
All-nighters are awful and most of the people who do them are on drugs (including Adderall) or taking caffiene pills to stay awake. I did the latter and still fell asleep at 6 am (for ten minutes). I walked into my chemistry final and I could barely concentrate. I would lose minutes just staring at a problem, trying to fight falling asleep.
Don't do it.
The best way to study astronomy, like all sciences, is to put the relevant terms/tables onto flash cards and go over them at least five times.
Don't freak out; stay on track but take a 10 minute break every hour. Do not discuss anything related to the material on that break.
Don't drink too much caffiene, whether coffee or soda; it makes you jittery and you'll end up reading a sentence and then going, "What did I just read?"
Don't stay up all night; brains need at least six hours of sleep. Four hours and you won't properly have put the information in your brain. All the study you did before will be useless because you won't remember it (or even worse, you'll confuse it with something else)
Don't get into study groups with people who are self-depreciating; someone who spends all their time talking about how they're going to fail or starts a tangent about their relationship woes is wasting your time and theirs and tell them that.
Don't leave your food wrappers and empty cups all over the 24 Hour Study Center; have some class and treat the place with some respect, like other people are going to come there after you -- people who aren't going to clean up your garbage anymore than you would want to clean up theirs.
AND GO OWLS! 2007 SUN BELT CHAMPIONS WOOHOOO
I always try to go to sleep early but I end up studying way later than I want to...I always think...just read one more chapter. No matter how much caffeine i drink my head is still in a fog unless i've had a decent amount of sleep.
Great work.
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