Time Is Of The Essence & Practice Makes Perfect

Grades are very important to me in college as opposed to how I felt towards them in high school. College costs money. 

Finals are generally the biggest, most important, and therefore dreaded part of the semester.

I get it. So I’m going to share with you my survival tips. You’re welcome.

To approach studying for a final exam, I make sure I have notes from the most important things I learned throughout the year. If I don’t have my own notes, I make sure to ask a friend or the professor if I can use theirs. 

I then take those notes and arrange them into individual flashcards that I type into Quizlet and make a study set out of them. I study those flashcards like I do my esports reps–at least once a day every day, and at least a week in advance before the final exam. Then I make sure to study them, again, right before it’s time to take the exam.

For a final paper, it’s important to know the topic of the paper I’m writing and when the due date is. I try to start writing the paper about a week in advance as well, so I don’t have to cram it the night before and submit a dumpster fire of an essay.  

Once I know the topic I will be writing about, I do some research on the topic using PittCat, Pitt’s online library system. I find articles I can reference or just use to better understand what I’m writing about. I also have to make sure to pay attention to what formatting style the professor wants me to use. As somebody who has three classes with three different writing styles–I’m looking at you, “Insider” and your Associated Press Stylebook– most of the points I’ve lost on essays have been because I accidentally used the wrong formatting style, so I refer to Purdue OWL when I’m not sure.

If you need any more help preparing for finals, you can ask your professors for advice, talk to your major mentor, talk to your pets and your plants, or set up a meeting with a tutor. Whatever you do, make sure to leave plenty of time beforehand to consult somebody, so you still have time to make sure you turn in an exemplary submission.

If you want to use PittCat or Purdue OWL as I suggested, I have attached the links to their names.