COLUMN: How I learned to stop worrying and love finals week
Good journalism shakes its readers to the core, challenging their commonly held beliefs and hitting them across the face with the truth minus hysteria and spin.
And nothing says hard-hitting journalism more than a hastily written column buried in the special Finals Week/Sudoku Appreciation section of Central Michigan Life.
So, brace yourself, dear reader, for you are about to be truth-slapped with news that, if my Facebook feed is any indication, is unbeknownst to most students:
Finals week is not that difficult. In fact, it might be the easiest week of the academic year.
Those who think otherwise don't know what they're doing, or they crave attention on social media by posting a link to a BuzzFeed article titled "26 GIFs of Adorable Crying Toddlers That Perfectly Describe Finals Week." (I assume that's the latest from BuzzFeed.)
I trust that you are not one of those latter people, because those people cannot read anything not written in listed/GIFed form. If you are, stop reading now. You are beyond saving.
For the rest of you, there is hope. I once saw finals week as the bane of my existence. Now, I see it as a chance to relax and enjoy one last week in the cultural black hole of the United States before heading back home for several weeks. You can, too.
Preparation for exam week needs to begin in August and January. Binge drinking and binge watching Netflix for 15 weeks before suddenly deciding to invest time and effort into a course is not only an incredible waste of your tuition dollars, but also ensures your mid-Decembers and early Mays will be hell on Earth.
Showing up for class, taking good notes and investing time into learning the material, as opposed to memorizing it for a quiz, will do wonders when it comes time to study for a final. Not only will things be easier to remember, but your grades should be high enough that, while a final might be important, it won't make or break your grade.
Also, whatever you do, don't cram. It's cliché advice at this point, no doubt, but it's the truth. Cramming a semester's worth of information into your brain the night before an exam only serves to fry your brain and turn anything useful you could learn into nothing.
Instead, plan out your days, setting aside times to study for your upcoming exams. Don't study for more than a couple of hours at a time, though. Give yourself time to take a lunch break, to go out with a friend to see a movie one night or the bar for a drink, to exercise – whatever you want. Space the studying out so you can digest what you've learned and are motivated to come back.
If you do that, you can join myself and a select few that view exam week as one of the best times of the year. You only have to attend each of your classes once during the week, and you simultaneously have more time than any other time in the semester to study and keep to yourself.
What isn't there to love?
