Ten Tips for Surviving Finals Week

1. Study like you’re Steve Irwin

Do the voice and everything. Grab a friend and make them your audience. Now this beauty is called “Shakespeare.” He marked his territory in England and built a name for himself through at least 37 plays and 154 sonnets. Crikey!

2. Group study

Get a group study room in the library, Get a group. Put group in room. Go crazy. A study group can help you cover parts of class you didn’t do so well in. Remember that time you skipped because you were having a mental breakdown over the crushing weight of responsibility and pressure placed on you? Turns out your pal Mo has the notes from that day, lucky you.

3. Scream

A cleansing scream can make a world of difference. You don’t want to go to a final tense with stress and physically hurting. The solution? Take a deep breath and scream at the top of your lungs. Pro tip: do this in the theater. Blame it on the thespians and no one will question it.

4. Pet a Pupper

There’s nothing like a fuzzy animal to help you relax. People walk their dogs around campus all the time! Find a spot to camp out near a sidewalk and wait for a dog walker to come by. Pet the doggo or pupper and consider finals week conquered.

5. Cry before you take the test

Trust me on this. Water soluble ink is not your friend. As a veteran of the American school system I can tell you that soggy pages are difficult to write on and decipher.

6. Drink water

Remember all that crying you’re supposed to be doing right now? Yeah, remember to replace that water. Dehydration makes you tired, and you’re already going to be tired from pulling an all-nighter finishing a paper for a different class. Being hydrated also gives you the excuse to take study breaks when you have to pee frequently.

7. Eat green things

No, I don’t mean that grass on the side of the road, I mean that grass in the salad bar! Keep up your nutrients and you’ll feel well physically just so you can later die mentally in the exam.

8. Consume Caffeine

Not necessarily healthy, but certainly necessary if you want to be more animated than a corpse. A healthy amount of caffeine (1-2 cups of coffee) can make you feel energized. Too much caffeine (6+ cups, I like to live dangerously) will make you jittery and more anxious, so try not to do that.

9. Treat yourself

As a reward for any accomplishment—no matter how small, reinforce that good behavior—do something nice for yourself. This can be a bubble bath, eating candy, or watching a video. My personal favorite reward is to just buy things that I don’t need that take up the time I designated for studying.

10. Breakdown

After the exam, freak the fuck out. Go crazy. Hold nothing back. Cry for 8 years and then sleep until your heart’s content.