Whether you are in your first year or your last, midterms and finals rarely get easier. March and April are the hardest months for any university student because not only are the assignments piling up and the grind is starting but we are feeling as if we have no more energy left to finish off the year. We as students need to make sure that we stay determined and burn bright rather than burn out.
- Make yourself a new schedule
-
Remember how productive you wanted to be when you sat down at the beginning of the semester with your coloured pens, giant Laurier calendar and all your different syllabi? Come back to that mindset and allow yourself to refocus and change around your routine to make sure you are using all of your time wisely to finish up assignments or prepare for final exams. Luckily with classes ending at the beginning of April you won’t have to get up for your dreaded 8:30am, but don’t waste precious studying time sleeping in until noon either.
Another idea is to make yourself a list of due dates in chronological order it may look scary, but the last thing you want to do is forget something is due or confuse one due date with another.
- Eliminate distractions
-
The equation is simple: distractions = procrastination. Try to get rid of many or all distractions as you can in the time that you know you really want or need to study. As much as you want to meet with all your friends and take cute Instagram boomerangs of your “study sesh”, you know it is not going to be productive and you’re going to regret the hours you spent there making TikToks rather than studying.
Find a quiet corner of the library or even a Starbucks if the complete silence freaks you out. Eliminate all unnecessary technology by putting your phone away or even handwriting notes rather than typing to avoid magically showing up on the Netflix home page again.
- School isn’t worth your health
-
There are many things that are more important than any essay or exam – sleep, food and sanity to name a few. You need to remember that you can always make up an essay, an exam or even a course and there is no need to harm yourself over that. Make time to eat and take frequent breaks to allow your brain to rest. This will allow you to come back to whatever you are working on even stronger than before. As doable as all-nighters seem, we all know they are not worth it because all they lead to is you being sleep deprived the next morning and having to relearn or rewrite whatever gibberish you wrote the night before.
- Get the help you need
-
Universities are equipped to help their students succeed in any task. Your professor has office hours for a reason, go use them! There are study groups put in place specifically to help you pass the exam, go to them! Specifically, at Laurier Brantford we have Learning Skills and Development to look over those final essays and help you improve them to get the best grade you can. Asking for help is not going to harm you in any way; in fact, it will only assist you to get the grades you have been aiming for all semester.
- Don’t give up
-
The mentality you keep through these last few months is going to be the biggest factor in your success. Do not give up and make sure that you put in the same amount of effort that you put in at the beginning of the semester. Reward yourself if you need to with a Netflix episode or a night out with friends to let your brain refresh. Remember that summer vacation is soon approaching, and it’ll only be a matter of time before your days are full of rest and relaxation.