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SBU | Wellness > Mental Health

Holiday Stress & Finals

Jordan Swift Student Contributor, St. Bonaventure University
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at SBU chapter and does not reflect the views of Her Campus.

With the holidays and finals coming up, it can become very stressful. Between making time for your family during Thanksgiving and buying gifts for your loved ones for Christmas, while also making enough time for studying, you may find yourself feeling very overwhelmed. 

When this article is posted, Thanksgiving will be exactly one week away. I plan to get all my work that will be due over break done this week. This will leave me to have a little weight taken off my plate. 

For Thanksgiving break, we have five days off. When we come back from break, we will have two weeks of classes and then finals until December 19th. 

This is what we call crunch time. You have two weeks to cram all the information needed to take your final exams. 

This semester, I have four exams. They consist of Spanish, Anatomy and Physiology, Epidemiology, and Diversity and Inclusion in Public Health. Honestly, I am feeling confident about taking them. 

On top of studying for exams, I am also worried about when I’ll find time to go shopping to get Christmas gifts for all my loved ones. Currently, I plan to go shopping on Black Friday (November 28th); however, I am not sure if I’ll find everything I need by then. 

I won’t have time to go shopping after Thanksgiving, so the question is, when would I finish my Christmas shopping? From when finals are done to Christmas Day, my family is usually busy doing family holiday activities. 

Since being at college, my family doesn’t usually decorate the tree until I get home, so we can do it as a family. More than likely, we won’t be doing the Christmas tree until December 20th or 21st. 

Then the week of Christmas, December 22nd and 23rd, usually my brother has basketball games, and my family must work, so I usually start working as well. 

We also must think of when we will have time to wrap presents. I typically will stay up to try and help my parents wrap my brother’s gifts, and I help my dad wrap my mom’s gifts. 

But for now, I will take everything day by day. Starting by finishing all my work that is due before break, then focus on Christmas shopping, and then cramming in all the studying I can before finals. 

Don’t let the holidays and finals stress you out. And remember that you are doing the best you can! Happy holidays, and good luck on your finals. 

Jordan Swift

SBU '26

Jordan Swift is a second year writer at Her Campus at SBU chapter. She plans on writing about current trends, different events that have happened in her life, movies that she likes to watch, and how they relate to her life. Jordan is excited to get to know all her fellow Her Campus sisters. She can't wait to read all the creative writings that her chapter of Her Campus has to share with others in the world.

Jordan can be described as a senior at St. Bonaventure and is currently in the 3+2 program, with her undergraduate major being Public Health with an Occupational Therapy concentration. She has hopes of becoming an Occupational Therapist for adolescents in a school district. She has shadowed several different Occupational Therapists and has grown to love the profession.

When Jordan has free time, she looks forward to spending time with her family and friends, going on hikes, listening to music, watching movies, such as "Matilda" and "Hocus Pocus", and going on different spontaneous trips. She enjoys volunteering at local SPCAs, as well as volunteering at food banks.