The weather is a little cooler and the leaves are slowly falling,which means it’s every college student’s favorite time of year…..Finals Season! The entire semester is basically a build up to this one week and a half of final projects, papers, and exams, and I for one could not be more ready for this season to pass.
working on our fluid mechanics final project
My first finals season was by far my most relaxed, and my junior fall semester of finals isn’t too bad either, but definitely for different reasons. Freshmen year, most of my classes either had a final paper or project, and I was done with finals by the second day of exams. Right now as a junior going through yet another finals season, I’m actually not dreading it as much. Of course I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t stressed during this time, but over the course of four other finals seasons, I’ve definitely learned with each passing season how to better get through this time of year. For me, that involves figuring out how study best, studying with classmates, and finding good study spots.
Coming from high school, like many other engineering students here at USC, I could get away with studying the night before a test and still pull out an A. This is not the case for college, no matter how smart you think you are. Figuring how I study best was more of a trial and error type of thing, which for me was extremely frustrating. But after talking to some friends, they mentioned having to go through a similar process in order to figure out what works best for them .
One of the ways I found that workS well for me is talking out loud as I study, which is great to do in study groups. As I mentioned before in one of my previous blogs, the Civil and Environmental Engineering class of 2019 is fairly small, and many of us have had classes and gotten to become friends over the years.
back to work
Now, studying in groups together is second nature. We’ll go grab food, study, and then hang out over the weekend. This not only helps me prepare for finals exams, but it also helps get me through the season. Being able to just relax and hang out in the midst of studying, and being around people who are going through the same things as myself helps keep me sane in the middle finals. Finding the right study space is also vital for a successful finals season. Campus has so many great study spaces that I would have never thought to check out had it not been for other people suggesting them. For instance, I would have never thought that the Price School of Public Policy building, and the New Annenberg School of Communication and Journalism would turn out to be two of my favorite study spaces. I didn’t think that the environment in which I studied in would make a big difference on my studying, but it surely does.
So here’s to another (hopefully) successful finals season!
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