Finals week is universally known to be a difficult and stressful time for all college students! Many students have many large assignments and important tests during this week that will make up a significant part of their grade, so stress levels are at an all time high! Here are some tips that can help make this dreaded week a bit easier for you:
1) Try Not To Cram
College students often make the mistake of leaving all of their work and studying for finals until the weekend before — even up to the night before their assignment is due or the day they have to take the test. Although everyone knows that it is easier said than done, you should try to space out your bigger assignments and studying over a week or two before finals week, so that you don’t become overwhelmed and have time to study well and complete all of your assignments. Sometimes things don’t work out like you planned, and that’s ok, but by spacing everything out, finals week won’t be as stressful, and you can go into your winter break on a positive note, knowing you did everything you needed to as well as you could!
2) Check In With Your Teachers
Although you may be tempted to do the easiest thing and just look at what is posted for your class online and study that, reaching out to your teachers is bound to improve your grade. By reaching out to your professor you can see if they are offering any extra study sessions or reviews, and they may even be able to give you tips that will help on tests and assignments. Most of the time, students don’t ask teachers, and that is why they don’t get all of the resources to succeed that they could if they had just asked. So make sure to take the step and go to their office hours or send them an email!
3) Don’t Give Up
It is very tempting to just give up on studying or completing assignments if you have calculated your grade and seen that no matter what you do you are either going to fail a class or pass it. This is a trap that many college students fall into, and one you should most definitely try to avoid. If you see that you are going to fail a class and you think you might as well not study at all, just remember that anything could happen, and if you do well on the test you may still be able to pass the class. The same thing goes if you are sure you will pass a class. If you think you might as well not study or do the assignments because there is no way it would make your grade drop a letter, it is best to just still put in the effort because many college students could tell you they did that and it ended up resulting in their grades dropping unexpectedly. Just remember to give your 100% in everything you do because you never know what will happen!
4) Study With A Group
It can be scary to reach out to other people in your class, especially if it’s finals week and you still haven’t made a connection or friendship with anyone in the class. With all of that said, it is very helpful to have people to study with. You just need to have 30 seconds of courage to go up to someone in your class who looks nice and ask them if they would be willing to study or even just hang out and talk about the class. Most students are more than willing to study with someone else, and they may even already have a study group established that you can join. It may seem scary, but it will pay off in the end!
5) Take Care Of Yourself
With all of the stress of finals, it can be hard to take some time to take care of yourself. It is tempting to give into the mindset that you must spend every minute studying if you want to succeed, but people often forget in order to succeed they must also take time for themselves. You should make sure to get enough sleep (even if you have to stay up a little late studying or wake up early to study), eat some healthy or nutritious meals, take some breaks, make some time for doing something you enjoy, or hang out with your friends.
No matter how many of these tips you follow, finals will still ultimately be a stressful time. Just make sure not to be too hard on yourself and treat yourself with love!