Put health before grades: managing the stress of finals
Drowning in piles of review study guides and trying to look up Quizlets with all the answers: This is what the week before finals looks like. As finals start approaching, the stress a student endures begins to magnify. Everything from the beginning of the year, that you promised yourself you’d review, is a complete blank in your mind. The amount of studying you have to do is overwhelming- and that’s just for one class.
Ideally, it would have been a good idea to be reviewing throughout the year, but who really has time for that? People get caught up with all the work they face during the term, and often forget about the final until it sneaks up on them two weeks before the term ends. I don’t even know where to start studying when it comes to finals. There’s so much content that needs to be memorized in a span of one week, that it almost seems impossible.
Being able to organize when to study for each of your upcoming finals is a skill in itself. However, from experience, making a timed schedule for what subject you will be studying never seems to work out. There is always that one subject you will spend twice as much time on.
The stress of finals can also take a toll on people’s health. Everyone is so focused on trying to get good grades, that they neglect their health. Some students will go without eating just to maximize their studying time. This just adds more fatigue on your body which turns into unnecessary stress. Although it’s hard to believe, mental and physical health are more important than grade averages. There is no doubt that finals can be stressful, but make sure you take some time during the day to just breathe.
