Ah, finals week. It’s much liked the countdown to Christmas, but instead of Holiday cheer, students are riddled with sleep-deprivation, over-caffeination, and stress. It’s the magical week where majors of all kinds collectively lose their heads over exams, projects, and papers.
Everyone goes into finals week with a different attitude. Some students may suffer from test anxiety, while others may feel their heartrates pickup at the thought of giving a speech. There are perfectionists and those that go with the flow– optimists, pessimists, and everything in between.
Regardless of what kind of student you may be, whether you strategize your time with amazing restraint—determined to get your work done, even if it means staying up all night every once and awhile—or whether you can’t find it in yourself to stay up past 10 p.m. anymore, it’s important to acknowledge the one variable that unites us all during these trying last few weeks of the semester.
We all care far too much.
We treat our grades and our GPA’s as the end all be all—and, for some of us, they are. These grades are the gateway to our degrees which we need in order to go out into the work force or into a higher degree of study. So, we chug our cups of coffee and energy drinks, we sacrifice our mental health to our textbooks and notes, we go to bed at 3:00 a.m., and we panic all the while about whether or not we’re prepared enough.
The unfortunate truth is that most of us aren’t.
But we can be. Believe it or not, studying works wonders. If you find studying difficult, don’t be afraid to reach out for help. There are a number of different resources available for free use on campus, such as the MARC, the professors, and even other students. It may sound crazy, but everyone wants you to pass just as much as you do.
At the end of finals, when you turn in that last exam, when you give your final presentation, you’re free for the rest of 2018. Sure, you won’t know your grade for some time, but as long as you put in the work and give it your all, it doesn’t matter. You did all you could.
So enjoy your break and scrape together whatever holiday cheer you have left, because you deserve to relax. You worked hard this semester. You deserve this break, because if you’re coming back next semester? Who knows when you’ll get another chance to sleep for an entire month.
Happy Holidays, and Merry Finals!
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By Maggie Christianson