Finals Anxiety

Hello!

               All of us at some point have taken a final. And around finals time, if you’re anything like me, you get a little bit stressed. I mean, who wouldn’t? Finals will usually “make or break” your grade in high school, and most definitely will in college. So yeah, we’ve all got a right to be stressed, because our society drills into our head that we need a good grades to get into a good college, and need to get into college to get a good job, and need a good job to have a good life, etc, etc.

               There are a few other things that add to the stress of taking these end-of-term exams, as well. For example, some teachers, towards the end of the term, will continue with the curriculum but also start adding review, which doubles the workload of the students. On the other side, some teachers won’t review at all, and leave all of it up to you. This leaves you scrambling for information and equally as stressed. One final thing that I see around finals time that’s stressful is when teachers wait until weeks after all the other teachers to grade your final. This shows laziness on their part, and increases the time from when students take the test to when they get to see their final grades for a class. That just irritates everyone.

               There are some ways to relieve this stress, though! When I’m studying for finals, I try to study with a friend when I can. That way you can bounce ideas and whatnot off of another person, plus it’s not one hundred percent work, one hundred percent of the time. I find that a little screwing around every now and again helps me to do better work when I have to. Another thing that I find works is when I take breaks from studying for finals. Study for an hour or so, then take a break and check your twitter, or facebook, or whatever it is that needs checking. If it doesn’t work for you, that’s too bad, because it allows me to get my studying done and have a little fun at the same time. Madness, right?

               So next time finals come around, maybe you could find your own things that relieve stress, instead of just giving your teacher the ol’ one-two and slug ‘em in the gut.

Thanks for reading,

Matt Finley