That time of the semester where you become best friends with the library and caffeine and begin to lose touch with your actual friends and your bed is upon you. That’s right collegiettes – it’s finals week.
Your desk begins to be piled with psychology textbooks and finance notes and Italian flashcards. Your body becomes filled with iced chai lattes, caramel machiattos, Red Bulls, and for meal plan deprived students, the free coffee from Mac and Lower. Your mind is jammed with information on James Joyce, returns on investment, Freud, organic compounds, and imperialism. Remnants of highlighter cover your hands, not from a raging party on South Street or Wallingford, but rather from the all-nighter spent in Bapst the night before. You spend two weeks in sweatpants with no shame. You begin to think you are in a relationship with a mysterious man named Tip O’Neill because you’ve spent more consecutive hours with him than with any of your current romantic interests. You sleep in booths in the reserves just to secure them for the next day. You stake out conference rooms in the building formerly known as Campanella with hopes that no one will find you.
But don’t worry; you’ll get through it. The stress-induced delirium you are going through will pass. There is a beautiful light at the end of the tunnel known as the sun, the sand, and summer vacation. A light that is ignited with the printing of the fifteen page paper for which you are currently struggling to think of a thesis statement and the closing of the final blue exam book which is worth 50% of your grade. Finals aren’t the end of the world. Remember this.
Remember to take time to breathe, to eat, and to (possibly) sleep. If sleep doesn’t seem to be in your future, admire the sunrise over the Boston skyline from the 5th floor of O’Neill. When the stress seems too much, grab a friend and take a study break to White Mountain and indulge in the Cookie Monster ice cream. Leave the confines of the library and have a picnic in the quad. Play tag on Brighton Campus. Have an impromptu scavenger hunt on campus. The library will still be there when you get back.
You’ll get through it.
Introduce yourself to the girl who has been sitting across from you for the past three days in the ERC. Propose a coffee break to the boy who has been sitting next to you in the Fulton Honors library for the past eight hours. Stand up. Stretch. Take a walk around the library, even if you have to pretend you’re “just going to print something.” Remember to cherish these moments, because as crazy as it seems you’ll miss them. In five years, you may not remember that Neville Chamberlain was the British Prime Minister during World War II or that the consumer price index helps economists see how much purchasing power the dollar yields. But you will remember the friends with whom you laughed hysterically at 4 o’clock in the morning after you tripped on your way to your seat. The friends who proposed a spontaneous gymnastics session in the study lounge for a midnight break. The friends with whom you watched movies after a long day in the library. The friends who suggested an impromptu dance party in a Higgins classroom. These are the things you will remember.
Remember, it’s just a test. It’s just a paper. It’s just a presentation. You’ll get through it. Finals aren’t the end of the world.
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