Panicking about midterms? Up to your eyeballs in essays and final projects? Stay calm! Follow these helpful tips from students who understand your struggles, and you’ll be surprised at how much of a difference it makes!

Do:

• Try breathing exercises. Ms.White does breathing exercises with her class before every test.
• Stay positive. Approaching finals with a positive attitude is extremely important!
• Know what you’re studying for! Make sure you know the details of what you’re being tested on, the format the test will be in, when the test is, and how much time you’ll have.
• Organize your materials. Check that you have all the notes, handouts and graded quizzes from the class.
• Rewrite your notes! Often the hurried scrawl you wrote them in is illegible later on, and writing (typing doesn’t count) the information down helps you to remember it!
• Filter out the extras. Outline, highlight, summarize, and chart the information from your notes! It’s not that difficult, and it helps you remember and understand the information and ideas that you actually need. For visual learners, you can’t go wrong with a mind map! Highlight important information. You can use different colors for different things, and put a Key in the corner showing which color corresponds to what type of information.
• Use Quizlet. The Learn function is particularly helpful! It makes you type out a term, and if you get it wrong they just repeat it later on.
• Organize study group sessions. A group of friends studying the same material, sharing tips and information and helping each other creates a fun and productive work environment where everyone benefits.
• Keep distractions at bay. Put your phone away, and don’t kid yourself — you can’t watch Netflix and study at the same time.
• Utilize Academic Enrichment for Manual Students. Known as AEMS, they’re super friendly and really helpful, so don’t be nervous! AEMS is in room 235 next to the library.
• Schedule your studying. Write out which subject you’re studying for, when, and for how long and set a goal. Plan around when each final is.
• Listen to music. Preferably instrumental music. Video game music is designed to help you focus!
• Take breaks when necessary. It’s important to take a few minutes to get up and move around, rest your eyes and your brain, and take a moment to process what you’ve been going over. Burnout is a real risk!
• Look after your health. Remember to take any prescribed medication, eat healthy, substantial foods, and get lots of sleep. And keep drinking water, it helps you think!

Don’t:

• Stress eat. It’s unhealthy! Plan to nibble on healthy snacks (like air-popped popcorn) throughout your studying.
• Pull an all-nighter. Those are unhelpful and harmful. If it comes to that, study in the morning, on the bus, or while eating lunch!
• Cram the night before. When you’re tired, you process things slower and have more difficulty remembering things. Cramming is definitely NOT the way to go.
• Over-caffeinate. You WILL crash. Hard.

Overall, just do your best and try not to stress! Remember: Grades aren’t everything, important as they may be!

Check out the finals schedule below: