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How to Make the Most of Your Campus Commute During Finals

Her Campus Placeholder Avatar Antara Sinha
Her Campus Placeholder Avatar Cara Chiaramonte
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at UFL chapter.

Finals week may not start for another seven days, but that doesn’t mean the stress is nowhere to be found. For those of us who have long commutes to campus, scrolling through Instagram or jamming out to “Gas Pedal” for the 500th time each morning begins to feel like a mundane routine that makes inefficient use of valuable time. Here are some ways to max your productivity and make the most out of the time you spend getting to and from class, regardless of how you get there:

Walking:

  • Download an audio lecture to your phone to listen to while you walk to class. If your school doesn’t provide them, check out resources like iTunes U that allow you to download video and audio lectures on every topic for free from thousands of different colleges and universities around the world.
  • Get in a jog: if you normally have a 15-minute walk from class back to your dorm, dress in comfy workout clothes to turn this commute into a dose of cardio exercise. It is not only a quick workout, but it’s also a great way to relieve finals-week stress and take a break from the books. 

Car:

  • If you have a class presentation coming up, take advantage of the anonymity of the car to rehearse what you’re going to say. Hearing yourself talk and working through any kinks in the presentation by yourself will be invaluable practice for the real thing.
  • Another reason to carpool! If you drive friends to campus, take advantage of the chance to have a major 30-minute cram session in the car right before your big exam. This is an easy way to brush up on the essentials because you’ll have someone to quiz you and help you remember the material. Just make sure it’s the person in the passenger seat doing the reading!

Bus:

  • Study with flashcards. If you have a 15-minute ride to campus and back, you can squeeze in a good 30 minutes of studying each day. You’ll know those key terms in no time!
  • Read the news! Instead of playing another round of Candy Crush or refreshing your Twitter feed, take a couple minutes out of your morning commute to skim the headlines. There are great apps like CNN, New York Times, and BBC News to keep you in touch. It’s a great way to stay up on current events and things that matter most in the world. 
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Antara Sinha is a sophomore journalism/pre-med major at the University of Florida. She is a contributing writer for USA Today College, and this is her third semester as a writer for Her Campus UFL. Her interests include health, science and lifestyle writing, and she plans on pursing medical and science journalism.
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Cara oversees Her Campus Media's community department and serves as strategic lead for the expansion, development and management of all HCM communities, including the Her Campus Chapter Network, InfluenceHer Collective, College Fashionista, Spoon University, Campus Trendsetters, alumni and high school. She works closely with company leadership to develop new community-related sales offerings and the Integrated Marketing team to support all community-focused client marketing programs from end to end. Cara has experience working with high-profile talent, such as Jessica Alba, Andrew Yang, Amber Tamblyn, Aja Naomi King, Troian Bellisario, Jessica Marie Garcia, Nico Tortorella, Nastia Liukin, Rebecca Minkoff, Cecile Richards and Samantha Power, as well as brands like Coca-Cola, L'Oréal Paris, The New York Times, HBO, Uber, H&M and more. Having been a part of the HC family since 2011, Cara served as Campus Correspondent of the HC chapter at the University of Florida where she studied journalism, women’s studies and leadership. A New Yorker turned Floridian, Cara has a Friends quote for any situation. You can usually find her with her friends and family at the beach, a concert or live sports event or binge-watching Grey's Anatomy or Sons of Anarchy. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter @thecararose.