Pain in temporary, GPA is forever---right?
Ah, finals. The final week of classes, where students know they will soon be unleashed from the burdens of real-life and college--once they attempt to learn a semester’s worth of material in hours, that is. Some people thrive under pressure—I am not one of those people. I firmly believe the best way to combat finals week is humor, laughter, and acceptance. Humor because my life is a joke, laughter because I can’t stop laughing at my GPA, and acceptance that the 4.0 I breezily maintained in high school went down the drain almost as quickly as my dwindling bank account goes down after each of my shopping sprees. I invite you to take a break from those stimulating notecards, a break from that enthralling research paper you’ve had assigned all semester and are choosing to do now, and a break from the stressful tribulations of academia induced by finals week and read my subpar article on my take on finals week. Bonus: there are funny gifs.
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1. Sleep is for the Weak
Yup, you read that right; it’s no longer just us insomniacs awake at night pondering life and prowling campus at night, it becomes a shared belief that you simply just do not have time to sleep. If you do, it’s basically a nap, because it is such a short duration of time. But, two hours or thirty-minutes, you find yourself shrugging and inwardly thinking “Well, better than nothing.” Luckily, I don’t sleep much as it is, so this is one aspect of finals that doesn’t annihilate me like it does most people.
2. Realization
Remember the quote you heard in school where teachers would say, “You’re not being tested on what you know, you’re being tested on what you don’t know.” Oh, so, everything in this class that I have no interest about and will never use in my life? Got it! Each finals week, without fail, I am hit with the sudden realization that I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing, and attempt to teach myself the material overnight. My success rate with this method isn’t very high, so I should probably make a new one.
3. You Never Realized How Good at Procrastinator You Are
Most people will say that procrastination is bad, because it is awful, but I am trying to take the positive spin on it here, by complimenting procrastination skills. Truly, it takes a certain type of person to realize they have sixteen research papers due and sixteen finals to do/take in the next three days (exaggerated, but just go with it). If procrastination was a sport prior to finals week, I truly think I would get a gold medal. Would I end up in the Olympics? Probably, because I am that talented at self-inducing stress.
4. Stress Doesn’t Even Touch How You Feel
Stress is not an appropriate word to discuss the dreadful, consuming, and awful feeling in one’s gut during finals week. You become suddenly convinced your brain has indeed turned into mush, and your brain is no sponge when it comes to soaking up knowledge. Instead, your brain is a flat and dull surface that is only capable of soaking up memes on the internet and Netflix. There are also points when you question how valuable a college degree truly is, and if your GPA isn’t high enough for a certain program, do you REALLY need to be in that major? The answer is your degree is very valuable, and you did not bust your ass this far to drop it over a little stress. Study up, kiddos.
5. The Library Fills Up
This is quite possibly the WORST side-effect of finals week. Suddenly, your favorite spot in the library is taken by some newbie who probably had to GPS where the library even is because you sure as hell know they’ve never been here before; because if they had been here before, they would know that they are in YOUR spot, that you have logged multiple hours in and AT LEAST deserve rights to. Seriously, don’t be that person.
6. Class Attendance Increases
Professor’s dreams finally come true towards the end of the semester; people actually attend class. Although their motives are usually just to raise their grade, a last ditch attempt to miraculously pull out a passing grade in a class they may have attended once or twice. A for effort, honestly; but if you skip class the entire semester, odds are, you will not magically soak up all of the material and understand the class. I know this applies to none of you guys or myself, because we are perfect and attend every class and listen to every word a professor says. But the takeaway from this is, just go to class; like the whole semester, not just the last week.
7. Under Eye Circles are an Accessory
I have dark circles everyday of the year, whether it’s finals week or not; so consider yourself lucky if you are one of the individuals who only experiences this physical misfortune during finals week, some of us like myself would really love not looking like a raccoon on an average day. Also, many students can be seen in sweatpants with messy buns and athletic style. This is not true for me, because I have a true disdain for dressing lobby; it just does not feel right. I am consistently taunted for this, but give me a break---I don’t say anything to you about wearing borderline pajamas on a daily basis. Students can be seen crawling around the library like the zombies we become during finals week laden with bags the size of Texas under our eyelids, and that’s just the truth.
8. The Nearby Break is Motivation
We have glorious dreams of the light at the end of the tunnel of notecards, study guides, and highlighter marks. The dream I am speaking of is the break that usually proceeds finals week, which is either Christmas or summer. During the finals week before Christmas, I motivate myself to push through by imagining the chocolate fudge I will stuff my face with in a short week and the presents in my future. Jingle bells chime distantly in my head as I imagine the freedom I will soon feel, and Christmas carols on Pandora serve as the reminder that this too shall pass; once finals week is done, we are free to enjoy the holidays, sleep, and function like a normal human—nifty!
9. Failure is Accepted
Don’t say you have never done this, because you have. You all know what I’m talking about, that point reached in studying where you feel as though your brain is actually a lump of mushy emptiness. That point in studying where you simply accept that you are going to fail, but it is okay; it is a point of acceptance. Most times, you will not fail, you’re just stressed and your soul is silently screaming for nourishment and sleep, and it brings about a calm sense of “Oh well, I can always retake this class. It’s no big deal. There might be extra credit. Not a problem. Do I need a college degree anyways? I know I’m awesome, and don’t need a piece of paper to prove it.” Yeah, you do need your degree, so chug another coffee and get on with it. If your coffee isn’t cutting it because there’s an uneven sugar/creamer to coffee ratio, that is a personal problem.
10. YOU WILL SURVIVE!
Finally, the truth sets itself free. There’s an old urban legend I’ve heard that deems we as humans will indeed still live even if we fail an exam and don’t do well on finals! Does it feel like the end of the world? Sort of. Will you live through it? Yes, yes you will. GPA is only a number, after all, and sometimes you just have to accept that life is unfair and hard and it sucks. This is all a part of growing up, which also really sucks. Together, we can suffer through finals week; and with each passing year, you will get better at learning strategies to lessen your suffering, and before you know it, you will be done with finals forever! Unless you are going to be a doctor or lawyer etc., because you have a lot of schooling ahead of you and I have utmost respect for you. On that happy note, I will now go and cry into my textbooks until I seep up the knowledge through my tear ducts—wish me luck!
