And so it has finally come, the last week of school — the last week to relax and still have a bit of a life before finals start next week. This week, I thought it best to turn my attention to finals and give some tips on how best to survive the last rush until we get that glorious month of freedom.
I’m a senior graduating in May who, to this point, has never failed or even done too horribly on a final. I give credit to the advice I have gotten over the years for helping me make it through the busiest week of the school year. If the Dean’s probation list is something you want to avoid, especially if you’re a wide-eyed freshman, follow these tips.
Tip One: Alcohol consumption. Although alcohol is a great friend of most people on this campus, the next week is when alcohol will become the friend that turns on you; the one that tries to plant a knife in your back when you think you need it the most.
Brain cells are crucial in order to battle the rush of exams and papers and projects. You have an entire month off to drink and not worry about school commitments, so stay off the sauce and you and your friend alkie can hook up again in a little over a week. Your brain, your liver, and your GPA will thank you.
Tip Two: Study location. Let’s put it this way: If you have to dress up like you’re going out in order to go to the library, chances are you won’t be studying too much. My suggestion is to avoid College Library at all costs, unless you’re planning to sport the absolute frumpiest clothes you have.
What’s the point of going to the library and flirting with people the last week of the semester? It’s not like you’re going to find the guy or girl of your dreams the week before you leave to go on a month-long vacation.
Additionally, I don’t think your exams will have any questions relating to flirting techniques, so spend your time filling your head with everything you didn’t learn this semester, not with stupid pick-up lines that you want to try to memorize to look smooth.
Tip Three: If you haven’t read or attended class for a majority of the semester, now is not the time to go see your professor or T.A. Professors and T.A.s love to lecture people who go to see them on how they have waited too long to seek help, and how it’s not the responsibility of the teacher to help the student play catch-up.
My advice is to go and suck up to two or three people in the class to try to get their notes or to get them to study with you. This is quite a long shot unless you have a few friends in the class, but at this point, if you’ve procrastinated on the inevitable, it’s likely your only option.
Don’t try to cram 16 chapters of reading into one night, either. Read and study up to three chapters of material a night for a class. Cramming may work for midterms, but when you’re trying to cram in the entire semester in a few hours, you’re fighting a losing battle.
Tip Four: Review sessions are great. Don’t go with the intention of asking things that involve “is this topic going to be on the exam?” because you’re just going to piss off your T.A. or professor. If you ask a question that covers something that won’t be on the exam, chances are your review-session leader will let you know that your topic won’t be covered on the test.
Even if you don’t have specific questions, go to the session anyway, because you could either learn something that you didn’t know you had a question on, or, in the course of the hour you spend there, you could think of a question that you didn’t even think of to ask. Another good thing is that you can sometimes learn what topics not to waste your time on.
Obviously, my little article did not cover all the possible great tidbits of information one could use in order to ensure success. However, any advice is better than going into finals week completely blind. Good luck on your finals, projects and papers, everyone, and I hope you all have a great and safe winter break. To all those who are graduating in December: good luck to you and congratulations.
Susie Strzelec ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in psychology.
