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).

With finals season fast approaching (or maybe it’s already here for you unlucky few), CollegeCandy would like to issue a public service announcement. Yes, classes are officially over. Yes, you will face a series of tests that test the knowledge you acquired in said classes. Yes, obviously, they’re a big deal. But should you ignore the rules of civilized conduct and go balls-to-the-wall crazy in your efforts to secure the best grades possible? Ummm…please don’t.

For your safety, please follow the few simple rules we’ve collected here for you. You’ll thank us later when you’re not 20 lbs heavier and missing teeth.

1. Eat properly. We both know all that Red Bull isn’t good for you. We also know that Gummi worms don’t count as a serving of fruit and awesomeness. Grab some carrot sticks and a eco-friendly bottle of water.

2. Get some sleep. Real sleep. Not in the library.

3. Pace yourself. Devise an organized approach to studying that doesn’t leave you cramming at the last minute. Then stick to it.

4. Stay of Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, etc. Ten minutes of “let me just see what people are up to” can quickly turn into three hours of reblogging, live tweeting and stalking exes. That’s embarrassing and unproductive.

5. Avoid any/all crazy situations resembling this scene that arose at William & Mary.

Brace yourself ladies, because today is not just any other Friday.

Today is Friday the 13th.

The day of bad luck and cursed lives and black cats and broken mirrors. Today is a day to fear. Today is a day to lock our doors and stay inside. Why is Friday the 13th supposed to be such an unlucky day, you ask? I think it has something to do with the superstitions surrounding the 13th and Fridays in general (guess Rebecca Black never heard about that) joining together to be the ultimate source of bad luck on Friday the 13th.  And as a result there are lots of horrors that await us.  Is it true? I doubt it. But even so, you might want to prepare yourself.

For anything.

Here are 13 unlucky situations (AKA, every college girl’s worst nightmare) you better wish you don’t find yourself in on this unlucky Friday the 13th.

1. Your hair straighter/dryer/curling breaks minutes before your big date… with only half your head done.

2. You sleep through your final exam.

3. Your hard drive crashes…before you printed out your final paper.

4. The guy you’ve been crushing on goes Facebook official with your frenemy.

5. Your train reroutes on the way to your interview. Read More »

[There are over 100 million sites on the Internet. 100 million! You might think you know about all the important ones (CollegeCandy, Gmail, Google, Facebook…), but there are thousands of other sweet sites out there (like Swap.com, LiveProfile and Foodily) and more showing up every day! We get it – it’s not easy or fun sifting through the crap and porn to find those gems, so we’re gonna bring the gems to you. Just sit back, kick up those feet and allow us to introduce you to the diamonds in the internet rough.]

It’s May, which means summer vacation is almost here! Soon, you’ll be free of classes and have plenty of time to relax, lie on the beach, party with friends, and work that summer job or internship — you just have to get through finals first.

But don’t worry, studying for finals this semester will be a breeze with Cramster! Cramster is a comprehensive online study and homework help resource that will make studying for your exams a lot easier. With Cramster, you can download study guides and lecture notes by subject, create and join study groups and take practice exams.

Read More »

According to the Daily Beast, Columbia University, my school, offers the most stressful undergraduate experience in the country.

Admittedly, taking a tour of any campus library during midterms or finals is enough to set your nerves on edge. Under-eye bags are as common on campus as Longchamp bags. Many students (especially first-years) constantly complain about their work overload. However, during my three years here, I have never pulled an all-nighter, missed a deadline, asked for an extension, or taken Adderall, caffeine pills or any type of energy drink (though, admittedly, I was studying abroad during the era of Fourloko).

Is this some sort of miracle? Am I a genius? Do I have photographic memory? No, I wish, and that actually doesn’t exist. But that’s another story. What I am is organized and realistic. And successful.

Here are some of my tips for keeping it all together. Read More »

As much as it pains me to say, finals season is coming. For some, you’ve still got a few weeks before all hell breaks loose. For others, there are only 7 days between you and those dreaded cram-everything-you’ve-learned-in-the-past-three-months-into-a-100-questions tests. Needless to say, it’s a stressful time of year that always sneaks up on us, no matter how many syllabi we have or how much we tell ourselves that we’re going to start studying three weeks in advance.

So, since we’re really getting down to the wire here, I’ve compiled a little survival guide to help all of us get through the most stressful time of a college student’s life. May these 7 things (and the force) be with us all:

Evernote: For those of us that are a little on the scatterbrain side of things, check out Evernote. It will organize all of those pesky notes and due dates that seem to pile up during this time of year, and keep track of important due dates..i.e. that 10-page paper due in a week. The site even offers different ways to upload your info, i.e. picture message, text message, tweet, email, manual, or by their browser add-on. Basically, you have no choice but to be organized and on top of your game.

5-Hour Energy: Put down the Four Loko, and pick up a 10-pack of 5 Hour Energy. No, I’m not condoning abusing energy drinks, but I am saying that this stuff works like a dream for those all-nighters or early mornings when you just need something to keep you going. I know that the commercials may seem pretty lame, but it really works. People who use it on the reg report no crash effect and little to no jittery feeling after. Read More »

There’s a lot of great sites out there on the internet. If anyone would know that, you would. (After all, you did find us.) But finding all of them isn’t always easy. So most of  the time you probably stick to the same old, same old, right? CollegeCandy. Facebook. Google. CollegeCandy. Maybe Texts From Last Night if you’re feeling adventurous. We know. We get it. Scouring the blogs for the best there is isn’t always easy and it’s definitely not quick. But now, you don’t have to do the legwork (or finger work? Er…) CollegeCandy’s Web Spy does it for you. Each week this column brings you a new find. From the best online shopping sites to the best places to waste your time to the best ways to get yourself organized and avoid procrastination, the last of which are the sites I’ll be focusing on right now.

The semester is winding down. Soon there will be papers to write and finals to study for, which means cutting out the procrastination and cracking down on the studying, which isn’t always easy. But fear not, our resident Web Spy has done her research, providing CollegeCandy readers with ten surefire ways to get organized and start studying.

Read More »

It’s finals week. You’re living on coffee and chocolate. Your days are spent in the library. Your nights are spent in the library. You’re wracking your brain trying to remember historical facts no one knows about and chemical equations you will never use. You’re stressed and crazed and far from in the mood to write. But write you will have to do.

Because in exchange for not having to take a final for that literature class you have to write a paper. And not just any paper, but a good paper. A really good paper. Because this paper is worth a large chunk of your final grade. The problem is though, you’ve never really gotten a grip on that whole paper writing thing. Sure, you know the basics, but do you know the specifics? Do you know how to avoid the mistakes that will keep that A just out of reach?

Well, I do.

After four years as an English major, one year as a literature tutor, and two semesters worth of thesis writing, I think I’ve cracked the code. And I’m going to share my secrets with you. Below are the most common grammatical and paper writing mistakes, the things you always miss, the things you need to know, the rules standing between you and that elusive A. So bookmark this page and consult it when writing those final papers. You’ll thank me later.

Read More »

You finished your last exam early and, after waiting for someone else to turn theirs in (you don’t want to be first!), ran down the steps of that lecture hall, slammed that baby on the desk and skipped your way to freedom. As you walk home you notice how great the air smells, how bright the sun is and how beautiful your campus is. School is out and you are feelin’ groovy.

After regaling your roommates with tales from your 90-minute essay exam (“I totally rocked that shiz!”), you head to your room to start the end-of-the-year cleaning session, beer in hand. You grab a garbage bag, sit down at your desk and start sifting through the piles of papers, books and notebooks that litter your desk.

In the back of your mind, you know that some of those notebooks will come in handy for next year’s classes. In the front of your mind, though, you know you will never look at them ever again. So, in a celebratory fashion, you toss one binder after another into the Hefty. Read More »

Like with most things in my life (namely, the boy I’m kinda, sorta talking to right now), I have a very complicated relationship with college. Over the past four years, we’ve had our ups and downs. There have been moments when my only thoughts were, I love college (when I was living one of these moments), and there were others (like when I was writing my thesis) when I’ve thought, I hate college with a fiery passion…

Ahem.

But that’s probably because college is a complicated institution, full of things we want to do, things we should do, and things we have to do. Some of the stuff is fun (Saturday tailgates), and some of the stuff is not so fun (Sunday all-nighters). So often, we love college just as much as we hate it. It’s a different experience for everyone, but I’ve pulled some of the more universal love/hate conundrums that go hand in hand with the college experience. Read More »