Since finals week falls the week before Christmas this year, I’ve found myself stressing a lot more than usual (if that’s even possible) in the week leading up to finals. Between Christmas shopping for the family, work, Secret Santa, final meetings, conclusions of group projects and semester papers, and obviously studying for final exams, I can’t seem to find room in my planner to add even the smallest detail to my schedule.
After 16 straight hours in the library and constant cups of Dunkin iced coffee in hand, your convinced that your body, in fact, is not 70% water, but caffeine. People make it a competition to see who has a more terrible study schedule. “Wow, you’ve been here since 10 am? I haven’t left in two days!” You’ve spent more time looking for an empty outlet at the lib than you did looking over that Bio study guide. Your friends occasionally look up from their stacks of papers to make miserably hilarious faces at you. At some point you’ve become slaphappy and the only reading you can do is from your best friends Facebook statuses circa 2009. You’ve given up hope on that Calc problem that took you two hours to find the wrong answer to and you can’t even being to fathom starting to memorize definitions for another class. You spend more time calculating what grade you need to pass than actually studying. Frantically searching Google for “careers that pay well that don’t require a college degree” has become your new procrastination method, and suddenly you just feel like crying. I could go on for hours explaining the absolute dread and hopeless anxiety experienced during finals week, but what would that accomplish besides freaking you out even more?
The week leading up to finals week and finals week itself are actually two of the most interesting of the semester. You’re studying with your friends hyped up on red bull for an inhuman amount of time. Sleep is much more valuable than it’s ever been. You bond with pretty much everyone in the library over your mutual hate of life. Laughing at pointless things has never seemed more interesting and neither has picking off all the nail polish from your fingers. You find a great studying playlist. You go to the grotto more often; take a short walk to calm yourself down. Suddenly you feel the urge to ask all your friends at other schools how their finals are going. Snapchat resurfaces and you’ve more than likely been challenged to start and finish the entire series of The OC or Breaking Bad before you leave.
A lot of great things come out of these two weeks. You realize how great your friends really are and how willing they are to help you out in your time of need. You’re more excited than ever to get home and sleep in a real bed and turn your brain off for a month. You’ve discovered some great things such as Nyquil, double shots of espresso, and SelfControl (it’s an app).
So, take a deep breath, another sip of your Starbucks holiday drink, walk to the grotto, pray that you’ll pass all your exams, and realize that you probably will.
Photos provided by the author