How to Prepare Yourself for Finals Week

The weather might be getting colder, but that is not stopping all of the sweat stained t-shirts being spotted on college campuses nationwide. The holiday season is fast approaching, a time to celebrate, avoid relatives, and eat excessive amounts of food and only feel mildly bad about it the next day. But as the holiday season grows closer, another event comes with it. An event that is far more stressful and terrifying than having to tell your aunts and uncles for the nineteenth year in a row that no, you are not in a relationship.

Obviously that hasn’t happened to me.

Obviously.

…

Anyway I’m talking about Finals Week.

This picture gives me life. 10/10.

In college, Finals Week is the breaking point. It’s your last chance in the semester to save your grade in one, two, or maybe even all of your classes. There is blood, sweat, and mostly tears shed throughout the duration of this week every semester. College students nationwide desperately cram in an attempt to learn everything they didn’t learn in class because they were too busy taking Buzzfeed quizzes in class, sacrificing the sleep that they need in order to appropriately function in society.

But this isn’t society, this is college.

You’ll sleep when you graduate and pay off all of your student loans.

Or when you’re dead. Whichever one happens first.

To help make this semester’s Finals Week a little bit more bearable, here are some tips to get you through this life scaring, traumatizing week:

1. Study in Advance

If you take the time to study the few weeks prior to Finals Week, it will be substantially less stressful for you. This way, you can break up all of the chapters you need to review so you don’t have to do them all at once. Who knows, you might actually learn something neat.

2. Plan Out Your Week

Nothing says stress like a busy schedule! By planning out when and where all of your finals are, you will be able to sleep a lot better at night.

3. Get a lot of Sleep
Speaking of sleep, make sure you get plenty of sleep during Finals Week and the weeks before it. Strive to get at least eight hours of sleep a night. It might be difficult at first, but trust me it will be worth it.

4. Become a Successful Drug Dealer

Another thing that causes a lot of people stress during Finals Week are financial burdens. In order to study more, you are more likely than not going to have to cut back on your hours at your part time job. However, as a successful drug dealer you will never have to worry about cutting back your hours at your job, your job is a part of you now. So just sit back and relax as the greens come in, and the greens go out.

5. Join a Violent Gang

If studying becomes too much to handle, join a gang! These crafty men and women will make sure that you get A’s on all of your finals. If a few people are hurt in the process, don’t worry! It’s probably not even your fault.

Probably.

6. Enter the Witness Protection Program

Next thing you know, your name is Susan Winters and you have cut off all of your glorious hair while you are being forced onto a shady aircraft taking you to an unknown, but safe location. Don’t worry, the finals can’t touch you now Susan.

7. Cry.

This is probably going to happen either way. Mental breakdowns are quite common during Finals Week. Succumb to the pain. Let the tears overtake you until your professors are drowning in your sorrows. No finals are distributed due to floods. You did it. You’re a hero. You are a beacon of light after a deadly storm. Just like Hilary Duff once said, “Let the rain fall down, and wake my dreams”, let those tears fall down. Do it for Hilary.

I hope these tips help make your Finals Weeks a little bit more bearable, I know I’m going to follow every single one of these tips because that’s the only way I’m going to survive.

Well maybe not all of them.

I don’t sleep very much.

-Poof

It’s Only Been 6 Days

Yes, yes it’s true. I am officially a college student. Believe it or not I am smart enough to go to college. In fact I’ve been in college for a whole…6 days now. And let me tell you, even though it’s only been 6 days, I have already learned a lot. Even though my classes don’t even start until tomorrow. Something that I learned right away is that no matter what day it is, or what time it is something is going on. Take right now for example, my dorms do not have air conditioning so I thought it would be a good idea to go down to my halls commons and write in a climate where I don’t have to listen to my own hair growing due to the humidity and sucking in anything in it’s proximity like the black hole it is.

 

Cute right?

 

Anyway so I walked down here with my roommate and we discovered that this is not the calm and cool environment that I have grown to love, no because for some reason there is an event going on. An extremely loud event called “Hallapalooza”. Apparently it is another event for people to get to know each other around here, but at this point it seems like a bit of an over kill.

 

Anyway, that’s besides the point. Each day that I have been here I have learned something different. Each day that i’ve been here I have met different people. And each day that I have been here I’ve literally seen more sunlight than I have seen all summer. So if you are planning on going to college in a few years, a few months, or even a few days let me share some of my new found wisdom day by day.

 

Tuesday: If your school has a bus system, there is a bus that will take you where you need to go.

 

My dorm is roughly a mile and a half off of campus, and I have the lowest meal plan where i only get a meal a day. Take that Freshman 15. Since my parents drove three and a half hours to basically drop me off in a cornfield in the middle of Iowa, they wanted to try some of the campus food. So I used my one meal of the day when i wasn’t even that hungry, so naturally I got hungry. I had heard there was an aldi in town and a great bus system that would take you right there. I asked one of my floormates which bus to take and he said the blue bus.

 

Never. Trust. People.

 

I got off at the last stop the blue bus had only to find out that I still had to walk two miles to the only aldi in the city. When I finally got there my face was as red as the acne on a pubescent boys face and i had sweat more than I had sweat in my entire summer. And that’s saying something. Apparently, Iowa is in the middle of a heat wave.

 

Thanks Iowa thanks.

pretty much heaven

Anyway so I walked into the aldi, and looked around as if I had stumbled onto an oasis. A cheap, cheap oasis. I nearly embraced the freezer containing the coveted goods. Aka microwavable chicken alfredo dinners. I proudly went to the cashier handing her my price. She looked at me once and said:

 

“You aren’t from here are you?”

 

“Is it that obvious?” as she begins to snicker observing my sweaty complexion.

 

“Well yeah there is a bus that drops you off right here. It’s coming back in 5 minutes.”

 

And in that moment I swear I lost all faith in humanity. Classic college.  

 

Wednesday: Don’t play ‘Never Have I Ever’ with strangers. 

 

If you don’t know what ‘Never Have I Ever’ is it can get really interesting…sometimes. And I have nothing against the game, in fact i like it. But some people go to far and make it uncomfortable for everyone involved, especially since no one knows anyone yet. We are all new here. We all don’t want to know where you and your ex girlfriend used to have sex. This is the time for a fresh start, not the time to make everyone think you’re an arrogant asshole only a few short hours after moving in.

 

Thursday: Scarves make hickey’s more obvious.

 

…no comment.

 

Friday: The two most common things that college students do outside during the day on campus are walk around, and play frisbee.

 

I never understood this stereotype about college, but it is so true. Everywhere you turn you can see at least one group of people playing frisbee. But the funny thing is…

 

No one is ever good.

 

The second I watch someone either throw or catch a frisbee it is just sad. It’s like all of the people that are actually good at frisbee are residing in the shadows laughing at the peasants trying to imitate their art.

 

Saturday: Parties. Parties everywhere.

 

It was the first Saturday of college, so naturally there were going to be a few parties going on.

 

A few is a very generous term.

 

From the times of 10 pm to 3 am there was a party nearly everywhere you looked. Girls were trashed, guys were sporting bro tanks, and i couldn’t stop laughing. People are silly.

 

Sunday: You do NOT have to look cute every day.

 

In all fairness this was a really unrealistic goal I set for myself. Before leaving for college I told myself that I would try to look as presentable as I could. I wouldn’t wear plain tank tops, or T-Shirts, or gym shorts unless it was laundry day.

 

Now don’t get me wrong i’m still going to try to look at least halfway decent, when i’m going to class or even central campus in general, but not in the dorms.

 

Because you do not know true pain until you live on the 5th floor of a dorm with no air conditioning.

 

Almost every night I have woken up sweating, and i’m not even sleeping under blankets. My room has two large fans operating and it hardly even makes a difference some days. Never in my entire life have I been this excited for winter. The thought of finally being able to sleep through the night with blankets almost makes me cry tears of joy.

 

It is seriously that bad.

 

And to make it worse, the midwest is in the middle of a huge heat wave for the rest of this week. The heat has become the reason for the teardrops on my guitar, actually i might be confusing my tears with the sweat that is constantly pouring down my face.

 

Once again, cute.

 

So basically on day 6 I could not handle it anymore and i gave into my cut off and wore it as proudly as someone can without looking like a douche. But the best part was:

 

I wasn’t alone. In that moment my eyes were opened, there were cut offs, cut offs everywhere. It was like we all came together to make a statement against the heat that has been holding us captive since we arrived on campus. It was beautiful moment.

 

So there you have it. A few things that I have learned so far. I’m sure there are going to be more tips I can give in the future because there are a lot of things here. College is already becoming one of the best experiences of my life, and i look forward to learning new things, meeting new people and trying not to look like someone out of a “morning after” video.

 

Classy as always.

-Poof