Whether you love her or hate her, Cheryl Blossom of the hit television series Riverdale has taken pop culture by storm. The first season revolves around the ominous disappearance and murder of her beloved and popular twin brother, Jason, along with a plethora of subplots surrounding two estranged best friends, Jughead and Archie, Betty and Kevin, who are thick as thieves and trying to get Betty past the friend zone with Archie, and the new girl from NYC, Veronica, whom Archie swiftly develops a crush for. Cheryl takes a backseat for many episodes in season one, mostly appearing as a hyper competitive mean girl, but her backstory and character development swiftly turns her from stereotype to immensely dynamic and multifaceted.
Here are 7 critical Cheryl-isms to keep in mind during DePaul’s tumultuous midterms:
1. Stay confident when presenting to a large group of people. Whether they are your teammates for a group project or classmates listening to your oral presentation, speak loudly, clearly, and with purpose. Do not let them even think about giving you a 4 for peer review. You are a 10/10.
2. Always retain a sense of humor when things go awry.
3. Do not spend all week locked in your room in solitary isolation; watch some tv, go out for lunch, read the paper. The world doesn’t stop spinning just because there’s an exam on Thursday.
4. Meticulously cite your sources for research papers; your footnotes need to be bulletproof. Plagiarism is real, and so is self-plagiarism. If you need help, phone a friend, check classroom notes, email the professor, use purdue owl, pull out that copy of The St.Martin’s Handbook you never used freshman year; just do something. Anything.
5. The best way to truly absorb and master vocabulary terms is to practice using them in real life. For instance, with a suave, spitfire feminist vocabulary like hers, Cheryl would get an A for her WGS 250 midterm.
6. Don’t forget to check up on your friends and siblings who are navigating midterms as well! Studying via solitary confinement is rarely a good strategy.
7. Practice makes perfect! Cheryl did not become an artsy whiz overnight. You cannot memorize 5 weeks of material in a few hours. Rome was not built in a day!