Grab your pencils and pens, make sure to add that extra espresso shot in your coffee, locate your dusty textbooks and find a good place in the library because Final’s Week is upon us ladies and gentlemen.
There’s really no other way to say it… Final’s Week sucks. Winter break is dangling in our faces like a cat toy and it is inches away from our grasp. The only things standing in our way are a couple of all nighters, flashcards, untouched textbooks, two or three papers, and multiple 50-100 question exams. We have been working tirelessly for the past three and a half months and now it’s time to come to the finish line. We started the semester at a running pace, but now we can barely stand on our own two feet. The semester has left us drained and dead inside, but now our professors expect us to ace these exams that they probably could not pass themselves. It’s like kicking a horse when it’s already down or pouring salt into a wound. How can we even go on? We’re so tired that we can barely keep our eyes open to watch Netflix, homesickness is practically tattooed to our foreheads, and we have built up so much anxiety about exams we could spontaneously combust at any moment. So what do we do? Do we throw in the towel and say “it is what it is”, cross our fingers and hope for the best? Do we pray to the God above and ask him to “take the pencil?” Or (stay with me here, I know this may sound a little crazy) do we actually give it our best? Have no fear! I am here with a few helpful quotes on the photos below that you can refer to as Finals Week becomes our reality.
Take a second to close your eyes and remember the moment when you received your acceptance into this University. Do you remember how excited you were? You finally had a future, a next step, a plan. You worked so hard in high school to achieve this goal, you filled out the applications, you drowned in SAT vocab cards. You used your blood, sweat, tears, and (possibly) your parent’s pay check to get here…and now you want to throw in the towel? You’ve started this long journey to your victory and you’re almost there, why does it make sense to give in now? So what, you have one week of academic horror. You somehow survived the awkwardness that is called middle school and you graduated from high school. Hard work and dedication should be a piece of cake by now.
I know that saying we’re tired is an understatement, but, now more than ever, you must endure. Work harder than you have all semester, work harder than the person next to you, work harder than your roommates, work harder than your professors. Take that extra step, go that extra mile, accelerate Finals like a speeding bullet. Failure is not an option success is a requirement.
In just a couple of years, you’ll wrap yourself in a robe and place a cap upon your head and in that moment it will hit you. All of the long hours you put in, the tears you shed, the textbooks you flipped through, all of it leads to this great and monumental moment which starts the next chapter of your life. You did not go to school because it was easy. You did not place yourself in debt before the age of twenty-one because it was fun. No, you go through these trials and tribulations because it’s worth it. It will be worth it when you shake your president’s hand and accept your degree in the other. That pride and glory that you will feel in the upcoming years makes it all worth it.
Finals week is going to be hard. You’re going to struggle. You’re going to have late nights. You’re going to debate if it’s really necessary to stay in college when being a waitress or waiter seems more appealing; but you must achieve victory. So to finish this with the best quote of all, always remember…