Swimming in Assignments Before Swimming on Break

 Aatina Shaikh

The last few weeks of the semester can be incredibly exciting, but also incredibly overwhelming. Professors are all piling their exams, projects, and essays upon students at the same time. It’s easy to feel as though you’re drowning in work. Don’t worry, though. A quick scroll through the group chat, and even this blog, can confirm you aren’t alone in that feeling. Here’s what we can do to combat the end-of-year slump and lack of motivation. If we can get past that feeling of drowning now, a summer filled with beaches, pools, and whatever else makes you feel at peace will become much closer faster than you can think. 

📝 Create a Plan For Studying 

It’s important to know how you want to divide your time between your major assignments. Make sure you try to allot even 15 minutes to every single class. It’s better to study slowly than to cram the night before the exam. It’s so much easier to retain everything in smaller chunks than skimming all PowerPoint, notes, lectures, or other material ten hours before a test. 

🫂 Struggle Groups

Try to find study (struggle) groups for classes that you feel are difficult to focus on or classes with content that is difficult for you to comprehend. Study groups will help channel all of your energy into that class and you’ll be surrounded by others who are in the same boat. If there aren’t currently any for your class, take the initiative to ask the people around you if they’d be willing to study together. Author’s Note: I’ve forged incredible friendships out of these struggle groups. They’re also great for a mental break. Having other people around you will keep you accountable, so whether it’s in person, or over a Zoom call, try to find others to study with. 

Study Tips: 

• If you’ve seen Teen Wolf, you know what I’m about to say. Color code your study sheets. Red for what material you don’t know or understand, yellow for things you kind of understand, but not completely, and green for things you’re a pro at. It’ll help you maintain your focus on the things you aren’t completely confident in and allow for an efficient use of your time. 
• Quizlet may be failing us now, but there is an alternative for those flashcards… and you can import your quizlet sets to this site. Check out Knowt. They’re fairly new, so they’re still improving, but it’s a free alternative to Quizlet. Author’s Note: This isn’t sponsored. I discovered them on TikTok and started using it to study for midterms and finals. Let me say, it works. 
• If there’s a concept that doesn’t make sense to you, try using AI to explain it. I don’t advocate for using it to cheat on assignments, however, utilize it as a tool to simplify concepts that lectures weren’t able to. I know many people who use it and find it to be a free way to explain topics if watching YouTube videos feels like a hassle. 
• Create possible exam questions and answer them. If you are creating questions, there’s a chance that similar questions, or even those questions, make their way onto the exam. If you understand the content surrounding them, you’ll be better prepared when it comes to the real thing. This can be applied to multiple-choice and open-ended exams. Even if the exact questions you use to study with don’t show up, chances are, the content you cover when studying can be applied to the real questions on exams.

Finals season can be stressful, but if you power through it now, you’ll be able to make it to summer. I recommend getting as close to the recommended eight hours of sleep per night as you can. The less sleep you get, the more disoriented your brain is. This goes for food too. If you’re a ‘stress forgetting or neglecting to eater’… quit it. I see you. I’m the same way, but if you keep snacks beside you as you study, you’ll be able to get food in you and keep your brain functioning. Plus, you don’t want to lose the gains. Breaks are also essential, so don’t mentally overload on everything. Take care of yourselves. Sending positive vibes everyone’s way! Muah. Finals got nothing on you!