If you’re one of those lucky college students who has “zero finals,” I envy you. For the rest of us, the hardest part of the semester has hit and those daunting finals are too close for comfort. As a humanity and social science student, my finals week consists of heaps of papers, and my perseverance is challenged at the end of the semester. Below are seven ways to get through pages and pages of papers. Good luck!
1. Start Early.
This may sound like what your Mom would say, but she says it for a reason: papers need to be started early. As soon as you hear about a paper, start thinking about a topic and go from there. If you work a little every day, you’ll be thanking yourself when finals roll around.
2. Outline Everything.
Your day, your papers, your paragraphs…outlines make everything better. Having an orderly plan to follow is the best way to keep yourself sane and keep your papers organized.
3. Take Breaks.
Finals week college students are extra-susceptible to burnout, which makes study breaks important. Everyone’s brain needs a break, even yours. If you start to realize that you can’t focus or think straight, take a walk, a nap, or a ten-minute break to call your mom. As I’ve mentioned before, calling the fam is a great way to get yourself through finals week.
4. Collaborate When You Can.
So long as you hand in your own words, many professors encourage collaboration. Writing a paper with a friend can be dangerous territory, but asking friends for sources on a certain topic or seeking out someone who has already taken the class can be helpful.
5. Turn On SelfControl.
Turning on your literal self control is important, but downloading the SelfControl app allows you to block sites on your computer that will distract you. Since paper-writing usually involves a computer, this can be a great way to prevent yourself from treating writers’ block with online retail therapy.
6. Set Goals.
Goal setting looks different for everyone, but it’s helpful in every shape and form. Whether you plan to finish a paper by the end of the night, a paragraph by the time you finish a hard candy, or a sentence before eating a gummy bear, it is important to maintain structured goals to keep yourself on track when writing a paper.
7. Create a Proofreading Crew.
If you have a twenty page paper to right, there’s a good chance one of your friends does, too. Get together a group of friends with papers to write (or a common test to study for) and plan to proofread for each other at the end of the night. This is a great way to stay on track in addition to catching grammatical errors and double-words. If everyone agrees to stay together until every last paper is finished,
Happy (almost) finals time! You’ve got this.
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