Finals Week Survival Guide

By: Alaina Gizzo
Posted In: Opinion

It’s that time of the year again and the work is piling up. Finals week is an overwhelming time in any college student’s life, but remembering to take control of the given workload can make it more manageable. After working at Salve’s Academic Development Center for about two years, I’ve picked up some good study habit tips from co-workers and from my bosses. Here are six ways to survive finals and tolerate the stress until summer break.

Take brief breaks when studying. Don’t sit at your desk for four hours straight staring at the same stuff. Your brain needs a break. Try a five minute break for every half hour of study.

Seek solitude when necessary. Your friends should understand if you need some alone time to finish up studying, after all they have finals too.

Do your work throughout the semester. Maybe it’s too late now, but when you break up the work over the semester you’re not stuck with six chapters of sociology you’ve never seen before.

Plan a block of time away from work. Schedule this deliberately so it does not directly interfere with studying. If you have a huge test the next day, try to do the studying first and then treat yourself to a movie with friends.

Do not pull an all-nighter. Rarely does studying during a sleepless stupor actually benefit a scholar. Try sleeping and then doing some more work in the morning, because falling asleep on a textbook in the library is not pretty and osmosis does not work for most subjects.

When studying, switch up the subjects. If you alternate between two or three subjects you’ll keep the material from becoming completely dull, but make sure that you ultimately study these subjects in their entirety.