It’s that time of the year. No, we’re not talking about the celebration of winter holidays; rather, we’re talking about the assessment period. Students, as you lock yourself in Main Building classrooms, the library, or your dorm room, it’s important to remember to take care of yourself. To alleviate your stress, anxiety, and exhaustion, we’ve got a few tips below to get through everyone’s favorite time of year.
Take breaks.
Of course, don’t let a break spiral into procrastination, and don’t get stuck doomscrolling on social media, but you’re not a robot. We all need to take breaks once in a while—take advantage of the adult coloring books in front of the library, enjoy the snow, or go over to the MAC to exercise.
Make sure to eat.
While you may think heading to the FFC and getting caught in an intense lunch or dinner table debate may eat up too much of your study time, that’s simply not true. Your body and brain need fuel to function.
Plan out your days.
With no schedule set by the school during the reading day or between exams, it’s easy to completely mismanage time during the unstructured period. Writing out major due dates or exam dates is a nice starting point, and from there you can make your own schedule with study blocks. Not only does that help keep you on track with your classes, but you’ll feel better knowing you have a plan to get through the assessment period.
Go to the TLC study sessions.
If you find yourself getting distracted while studying, go to the TLC! Not only will working in a quiet environment with other “locked-in” students motivate you to buckle down, if you need, you’ll also find plenty of math help or peer tutors eager to help you out.
Most importantly … get sleep!
Similar to eating, we simply can’t function without sleep. Countless studies correlate bad grades with not sleeping, and while you might think sacrificing an hour of sleep for another hour of studying is a good trade-off, is it really worth it if your brain is mush and barely retaining any information?
We hope the above has been useful, and we hope all your exams go well! Good luck!
