Six and a Half Lessons From My First Finals Week

December 6, 2011 7:00 pm     Posted in College, Reality  Leah Kuttruff - College of Charleston g+ page


By Leah Kuttruff

Finals. While high school cared enough to only dish ‘em out once a year, we’re no longer so lucky. “So I’m supposed to remember everything since August? Is this cumulative? IS THERE EXTRA CREDIT?!” (Sidenote: Who else is psyched that EC opps still exist in college?). So what’s a girl to do?

Simple. Start now. And follow these lovely (simple, and rewarding) steps to prep yourselves for hell week.

The 6.5 Steps to Finals Success:

Get papers out of the way: Papers are majorly lame. Are they going to get you an A on a final? Nope. So knock them out of the way first in order to focus on the heavily-weighted 100 short-answer exam you have coming up in your Psych class.

Breaks: So important. Has your mind gotten clogged up with calculator functions yet? Take this opportunity to f*&k s#!t up at the gym between 3-page increments of that research paper.

Hard work (Dedication!): Keep your eyes on the prize. By now, you have a ballpark idea of what your final grades could be. Let there be no slippage! And hey, coming home with a 3.5 (or better, obv) before Christmas will definitely boost your chances of seeing a shiny 4S under the tree (or by the light of your menorah)!

Rewards: Finally turned in that research paper? Good job. Treat yourself to a re-run of the VS Fashion Show or a well-deserved blackout!

Outlines: Get this crap out of the way ASAP. Literally… just re-type those study guides your professors gave you all the time and build up this study skeleton with a healthy dose of factual meat. So mindless, yet so helpful.

Sleep: Awkward that I need to remind you… but I guess that’s what happens when you move outta momma’s house. It’s been scientifically proven that you’ll be 100% more alert if you sleep before an important exam or project than if you pull an all nighter. (And I didn’t even need to research that! Thanks, common sense.) It’s more efficient to do a bit of studying before bed, say 11:30ish, and rise half an hour earlier to put in that much more effort. You’ll retain the information better because it’s being repeated at another time, and you won’t wake up ugly. Win-win!

Rewards: Yeah, there’s the other .5. Go rage again, you deserve it. Or be mellow and buy a holiday latte. Your call.

Good luck, fellow freshies! Break is right around the corner.

Leah is a freshman at the College of Charleston whose hobbies include underwater basket weaving, painting hopscotch blocks for inner-city schools and harassing unfaithful celebs and politicians via Twitter (@leahsparagus).

8 Comments on "Six and a Half Lessons From My First Finals Week"

  1. Maura - Rider University says:
    Tue, 6th Dec 20119:44 pm 

    Nice tips, I think I'm going to go for the latte one.

    I'm honestly not too stressed about finals. Freshman year has been pretty easy for me so far. Good luck to everyone else!

  2. Julie says:
    Wed, 7th Dec 201111:08 am 

    Great tips especially getting some much needed sleep! As hard as it is to find a spare hour or two, try to catch a few z's even if it's only a quick nap in between reading long and tedious chapters in your OChem book.

  3. princessmahina says:
    Wed, 7th Dec 20112:57 pm 

    The only final I'm not looking forward to is econ. We've basically discussed nothing but Little House on the Prairie, football, and hunting season.

    Other than that, I'm not really worried about finals- I only have 3 anyway:)

    http://textbooksandtofu.blogspot.com/

  4. Katie Garrity - North Central College says:
    Wed, 7th Dec 20113:03 pm 

    I wish I had these tips when I was a freshman. My first finals week was disastrous to say the least.

  5. Steph says:
    Wed, 7th Dec 20115:14 pm 

    great tips. I'm really good at rewarding myself during exam season. According to my Starbucks holiday drinks frequent buyer card (In my head, not real) wayyyy too good.

  6. Catie says:
    Tue, 13th Dec 201110:40 pm 

    The quarter system FTW… we're already done with finals! :p

  7. James says:
    Tue, 24th Apr 20122:18 am 

    I have a great story for fans of Cher.When she played the Manchester UK date of her Farewell Tour, Cher gave a meitonn to a man named Harry Goodwin who was in the audience. He is a British photogarpher who took many if the now iconic black and white pictures of Sonny & Cher in the 1960 s. The footage of this was also shown on a regional news programme a few days later. At the time, I was working in a music store in Manchester, and a few weeks after the show I spotted Harry in the store. I went up to him and he told me of how Cher remembered him and gave him a free ticket to the show. He met up with Cher before the concert, and without any publicity Cher gave him a cheque for a31000 as a donation to a local cancer charity that he supports (Marie Curie Cancer). How kind and lovely is Cher! Harry told me that That sort of thing doesn’t get in the papers, because they’re too busy focusing on the likes of that bastard David Beckham , which made me roar laughing. Harry is in his 90 s now, but is still as sprightly as anything and is still taking pictures.So Cher if you’re doing a 60 s album, why not call Harry up to do the album photo’s?, I’m sure the results would be incredible!VA:F [1.9.15_1155]please wait…VA:F [1.9.15_1155](from 0 votes)

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