For all of you finishing your last rounds of midterms, its finally time to take a nice breather. In no way is the hard work over, but at least now you have more time to reply to those emails that may have piled up, hit the gym, and catch up with those friends who have been saying "Hey! I haven't seen you in a while! "(even though it's only been like a week).
So how to get through midterm season? How to recover from it? Here are a few of my favorite thoughts: 1.The most obvious way to re-charge your batteries, but so often neglected for more thrilling and exciting endeavors. Nothing will fuel you for the rest of the semester like crashing at 8:30pm and letting your alarm take the night off too. 2. Eat at a fancy restaurant. Dress up, find somewhere new, or revisit an old favorite. I love the restaurants in downtown GR, because it's so close to campus. I went to dinner at Ruth Chris Steakhouse a couple weeks ago, and brunch at The B.O.B. (near the river) last weekend. So delicious, and yet so necessary to fuel a midterm-ready brain. 3. Go shopping! Enough said. River town and Woodland Mall are great places to do some retail and window shopping. Fourth, get back in your old habits.
With midterms out of the way, I'll start calling my mom more often, catching up with my roommate again, and re-visit to the gym with my semi-regular gym buddy. Fifth, catch up on seasons of your Favorite TV show. For me, that means it's time to see what's happening on the "The Originals."
Midterms aren't always so bad, but it can be rough when you have more than one in a week! It's important to do well on all of them, and recover in ways that don't include too many coffee runs. Of course, there are many other ways to de-stress in GR, like going to the beach (when it is cold outside, that's not a smart idea), going on a run, a walk through downtown, going to concerts, seeing a play, etc… Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to do those this week!
Those pre-midterm jitters get you very time. Students rushing to cram for an exam that they have known about for months,
I guess constantly putting homework/study off gets old. Campus libraries and study halls are being filled up to capacity, power outlets over filled with the cords of computers and tablets. The floors of the library look strands of power lines before they are attached to the telephone poles. A cluster of young adults in pajamas and bed head fill the libraries halls followed by the constant fiddling and clicking of pens. Students passed on tables, desk and are camping out in the library from sun up to sun down just to study. When they could have just planned ahead instead of stressing about the test that is worth 15% of their grade, that is also about to lower their grade because they decide to not plan ahead.
Now with this it is possible to avoid this whole train wreck and limit your stress during finals week. You just need to plan ahead and take the time out of your day and do nothing but focus on studying for your test.
It has been proven that students that have better study methods and strategies score higher on exams. Here's just a few things students could do to improve their scores by: first by reviewing the material right after class when it's still fresh in your memory. Second have all of your study material in front of you: lecture notes, course textbooks, study guides and any other relevant material. Third find a comfortable and quiet place to study with good lighting and little distractions (try avoiding your own bed; it is very tempting to just lie down and take a nap). Fourth space out your studying, you'll learn more by studying a little every day instead of waiting to cram at the last minute. By studying every day, the material will stay in your long-term memory but if you try to study at the last moment, the material will only reside in your short-term memory that you'll easily forget.
