Hello, all!
I’m typing this from one of my comfy study spots on campus on the last day of class. I had an exam today (not a final, but I’m not going to rant about that now) and just turned in an extra credit essay. Now that my brain if fried, I thought I would un-fry it by sharing some of my best study tips, ways to survive finals, and encouragement for the upcoming week. Obviously, everyone is different, but these are just things that work for me.
1. USE. A. PLANNER
I’m sure a lot of you already do this, but I can’t stress enough how important it is for me to write out all of the times and places of my exams. I would feel so overwhelmed. To go a step further, I like to plan out when I am going to study for each exam. Luckily, mine are pretty spread out, so I just drew little color-coordinated arrows over the days I’m going to study which exam.
The planner I have is Erin Condren and I love it! My friend gave it to me as a “starting-college-gift” with UNC’s colors, my name and everything (seriously, the sweetest gift ever if you’re thinking about Christmas presents). One reason I love it is because it’s completely blank and you can personalize it with the month tabs and date stickers. (Click on the picture to go the website.)
2. COLOR COORDINATE AND SEPERATE WITH FOLDERS
I am a very visual learner, so it helps me a lot to write everything out when I study. For different topics I’ll use two different colors, so I can associate them together. I’ll remember it like, “This theory was written with purple and orange…or light and dark blue…” or whatever floats your boat.
Secondly, for each exam, put your notes in separate folders (or at least separate them in some way). There’s nothing worse then having everything jumbled, or wondering where “that” paper is. This way, you can sit down, pull out that folder and voila!
3. TAKE AN HOUR EACH DAY TO DO SOMETHING THAT BRINGS YOU LIFE
Not YouTube or Netflix. Sorry. You’ve been called out.
Bake a cookie! Or 17! Watch the sunset while writing in your dream journal while wearing a moisturizing facemask!
Ok, for real, though. I think you can get so caught up in studying, that it actually feels like you’re going insane. You need to remember what you’re doing this for and that there’s life outside of school. Don’t be too hard on yourself and have grace for yourself during the next week and a half. This may be the fourth day in a row you’ve worn those pants, you may have finished that small cake by yourself…this is all hypothetical.
So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. 1 Corinthians 10:31