System 13

The college quarter ends for me this coming week. That means – what was that groaning I just heard? – yep, that’s right, finals. Finals aren’t all that bad, though, at least not if you deal with them intelligently. Here are a few common sense tips to help you do just that.

1. Don’t take your finals too lightly, but also don’t take them too seriously. Try to keep things in perspective. While this won’t hold for all of your courses, generally, finals are one part of your grade in one course. Don’t kill yourself over it. While I’m all for academic excellence, giving yourself a nervous breakdown over an exam is (in my opinion) taking things a bit too far.
2. Plan accordingly. I’ve found that for most of my courses, the major obstacle in learning the material isn’t really the difficulty of the content, but instead, making sure I set aside time to actually study. If you know you have four final exams coming up on Monday and Tuesday, don’t wait until Sunday afternoon to start studying. This tip, by the way, will work well for all of your college career. Know when stuff is due and plan accordingly.
3. Sleep. Brains don’t like working without sleep. They tend to make stupid mistakes or just refuse to function at all. Massive amounts of coffee might help with this problem, but that’s a dangerous bet to make during finals week. Get some sleep. If you follow tip #2, you shouldn’t really need to stay up until 6AM studying.
4. Have fun. Following tip #2 helps with this too. Take breaks from studying and do something else. Go outside and play with your dog. Drink a beer (if that’s your thing). Have sex with your overstressed-from-finals-week significant other. Just get the hell away from the books for a little bit. Study burnout isn’t fun, and it generally won’t help your grade.
5. Don’t cheat. Cheaters suck. You don’t suck, do you? Yeah, I didn’t think so. Just don’t do it.
6. When you’re done with the exam, forget about it. You’ve followed my tips: You planned accordingly so you had plenty of time; you studied hard (but with breaks); you played some Mario Kart in between studying your microeconomics and ethics of 17th century Europe; and you didn’t sink to the low level of cheating. You did all you could to ensure that you’d do well on the exam. Now that it’s over, don’t stress over it; unless you have the ability to change the past, you’re wasting your time! Sit back and relax.

If you have any further finals exam survival tips, drop ‘em in the comments!

BONUS TIP: I did quite a bit of studying earlier today, and from that, I have another tip to share: Get out of your house and away from your family. It’s so much easier and productive to study when you aren’t at home. You’re away from all of your “stuff” – books, computers, music – which is helpful in keeping you focused on your studies. You’re also away from your family – which is helpful in keeping you sane. I know from experience the frustrations of trying to study material only to have someone interrupt me repeatedly. Not fun!

There are plenty of places that are conducive to studying. I’d recommend the no-brainer: the library. That’s where I did my studying today, and it was quite nice.