Gentle brown leaves trickle down to find the softly dampened sidewalks. Boots clunk, clunk, clunk through the lazy thick fog. And wrapped in a cozy warm jacket is… not me… because I am stuck witnessing this season through the windows of the Kinlaw library instead. Yep, with every semester comes the dreaded wake-up call: midterms. But what is most unfortunate is the fact that it is always squashed within my favorite time of year. How can we expect to live out an era of Jane Austen, Gilmore Girls, pumpkin spice and bonfires and literally anything and everything that is so perfect and beautiful in this world if we’re all stuck in that – albeit very nice – library? Fall is my Sunday kinda love, but I can’t appreciate what I don’t have time for. Or can I?
As a university senior, I’ve been enlisted to give some advice on how to survive midterms, not specifically fall or spring, since both are equally as spooky. Let me put it to you straight, bribing your teacher with homemade fresh bread or a really spectacularly written email won’t help you on this mission. Alas, there is only one way to succeed. And I hate to break it to you, but… you might want to go find that textbook you got at the beginning of the semester but haven’t cracked open yet.
If you’re like me then you might also love the thrill of doing something at the last minute. It’s like a race for time, and I swear that my work is “better” when I crunch. Most might call it by the technical word “procrastination,” but for me, I like to call it “the process.” I’m cooking, as the youngsters say nowadays. And it seems like there’s a high chance you are in the same boat.
A study conducted in 2007 and cited on the website Solving Procrastination stated in their article “Procrastination Statistics: Interesting and Useful Statistics about Procrastination Studies” that “Studies show that around 50% of college students procrastinate in a consistent and chronic manner, 75% consider themselves to be procrastinators, and 80%–95% of college students procrastinate.”
There are benefits to procrastinating – I mean, “the process.” After all, I still practice it from time to time. For instance, it allows you to have a break or lets you think of creative and different approaches to an assignment. And the adrenaline is pretty awesome. With that being said, you shouldn’t stuff your mind like a Thanksgiving turkey. Let’s face it, cramming in half a semester’s worth of knowledge or doing that large project in one night will not only result in loss of sleep plus anxiety and lower scores; you’ll probably not feel the best about your accomplishment because you know deep down that you could have done higher quality work.
Okay, if I’m spilling all my study secrets, then I have to be honest with you… when I said I procrastinated, I wasn’t being 100 percent honest. But at the same time, I was. Let me explain. It was freshman year, and I really did have bad time management issues, so I decided to make my time blindness work in my favor. I set my clock 15 minutes ahead so I was never late to a class or meeting and I would write a to-do list each week. But here’s the kicker, I would put some of the due dates earlier than they actually were and leave a few of the dates unchanged so I would not remember if the date was correct or not. This way I was tricking my brain into panic mode, even if it did not have to be.
Quizlet has never been a great tool for me. I’m just not into flashcards, and I get bored of the games pretty quickly. So instead, I found that going into the classroom the test would be in and covering the whiteboard with the vocabulary or study guide questions and answers was the best method for me. I would stay in that room until every ounce of what I needed to know was on that whiteboard. And I left it up for the next day in hopes I could slip into the room to get a quick recap before it was wiped away. (I want to preface that I did NOT break into any buildings. However, if a building door just so happened to be open during “technically closed” times… all I’m gonna say is a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do).
You might have seen me on my computer working on something with undefeatable attention, but that was most likely not homework. Nay, it was probably the unlimited version of Wordle. Huddled in my room or in empty classrooms is my go-to studying location. Unfortunately, it must be a solo adventure since concentration is a big struggle of mine. The downside is I can become a bit of a hermit. Luckily going to class gets me to join society for a bit. I do not think it is an issue to study alone, but it is one when you transform into a recluse. Socializing and being with friends is just as important as studying, so try to find some sort of balance between the two.
So now that dreaded wake-up call is upon us yet again. But I have time to go for a little walk and watch the gentle brown leaves trickle down to find the softly dampened sidewalks with my boots clunk, clunk, clunking through the lazy thick fog. And in a cozy warm jacket.
