It’s that time of the semester again where at times the anxiety is more prominent that holiday cheer on campus.  Don’t let final exams pull you down!  JSM is here to help take some of the stress off your shoulders to make exams a little easier to manage.

Don’t Pull an All Nighter

As much as you want to stay up all night studying or hanging out with friends before everyone leaves for break it’s important to make sure that you get a proper amount of rest during finals week.  Many times you’ll find that libraries are open 24 hours a day or local coffee shops have extended hours to support students even into the late evening who are panicking over their last-minute cram sessions.  Pulling an all-nighter, however, is one of the worst things that you can do (short of accidentally sleeping through your final).  Fatigued brains do not retain information, nor do they recall it well. There are effective ways to study in the last weeks of the semester (see below for more) and depriving yourself of sleep is not the way to go.  So set the coffee down and get into a regular sleep schedule to make sur you perform your absolute best when test time comes.

Verify Details

Make sure that you get exam time, location, type of exam, and what information will be on the exam.  Each college and university arranges its finals week differently.  This means that the time that your final will take place might be different than your usual class time.  Or it may be scheduled on a different day and hour.  Be absolutely sure that you know when (and where) your finals will be held.  You will also want to know what the professor’s policy is on using open notes or whether there will be written parts of the exam.  Your exam may also only be over certain information or it might be cumulative.  Scrambling to find this information on the day of an exam will only serve to increase your nervousness so get all of this sorted out as soon as possible.

Eat Well

It’s no mystery that eating healthy food will help you during exam week.  Living off of ramen and coffee will not sustain you.  Make sure you are drinking plenty of water, and eating foods that digest slowly to help prolong your energy mentally and physically such as vegetables, lean protein, and whole grains.  Also plan to have healthy snacks with you when you are studying or during exams as sometimes they can take two hours to complete, consider a bag of baby carrots or a handful of almonds or walnuts.

Find Your Study Method

For most students, finals week does not consist of just one exam, so you might be planning to study for each test individually in chronological order.  Interestingly, research has shown that human brains are not designed to focus narrowly for long stretches of time.  Consider, to plan to work on one subject for just a few hours and then switch to a different subject.  You’ll be able to mentally take a break and keep your brain from going numb from studying the same subject too long.  You can also take short breaks each hour to refresh your mind.  You should also look into studying either alone or in a group.  Depending on what type of exam it is can dictate this.  If it is an oral exam or an exam that requires you to discuss topics then it might be more beneficial to study with a friend who can help quiz you.  If it is a written or scantron exam it might be best to study alone.  When studying, do factor in location.  Sometimes, working in your own apartment might cause you to get distracted, so look into going to the library, coffee shop, the Union, or somewhere else on campus that offers a quiet study space for students.

Silence Social Media

While it is true that devoting too much time to studying can lead to fatigue, dividing your review sessions into too many parts can lead to scattered and ineffectual learning.  Powering down for an entire week may not be realistic for every student, but do consider using it as a reward for after completing study session to check in on social media 10 to 15 minutes before going to bed or during a break.  However, be aware of the “just for a moment” syndrome.  As most people know all too well, checking news headlines can lead to an entire afternoon of watching hilarious cat videos and reading celebrity gossip.  Remember, some focus is better than no focus.  More than likely, finals will be going on at the same time at many other colleges and universities, so there won’t be much going on Instagram other than every student posting pictures of their favorite “challenge accepted” meme with #collegefinalsweek.

A strong finals week performance may seem impossible, but set your worries and nerves aside, and remember to stay on task, work hard, eat well, and make time to rest. Soon, finals week will be over, and you can begin to focus on spreading holiday cheer instead!  For more helpful tips check out our last blog on 7 Study Tips for Finals!