Ah yes – finals week.
The most busy, slow, hectic, relaxing, stressful and exhilarating week of the semester.
A lot depends on whether you’re one of those with projects that were all due during dead week, or had a test the Friday before dead week in the same class with a monster final at 7:30 Monday morning.
Regardless, I have a few basic reminders to keep you from emerging from this crazy week without a black eye — academically speaking.
Sleep
According to Harvard Medical School, the brain consolidates and stabilizes memories made the day before during that all-important shut-eye.
In other words, while you sleep, your brain is finding the important memories, sorting through them, burning them onto discs and labeling them.
So an all-night cramming session leaves all that information floating in a transient form, and your brain will be fogged and unhelpful at that 8:30 a.m. final.
Besides, no one wants to be woken up from a nice nap by the teacher’s assistant saying, “Time’s up — hand in the tests.”
Eat
You need to eat and to snack, but not just the vending machine kind of snacking. At least try for something out of the Idaho Commons’ Vandal Express coolers.
The brain needs glucose — lots of it, to run at top speed. A blood-sugar spike from candy, pop or simple carbs like white bread, bagels and donuts, is followed by a plunge in blood sugar and leaves the brain starving.
Foods like cheese, meat, eggs, whole grains, nuts and fruit will digest slowly and keep your brain fueled through finals.
Toss a banana in your backpack to eat before the test, or a zip-close bag of peanuts and raisins. But please, don’t be that person who crunches on pretzels all the way through the final either. That’s annoying.
Study…
Really — it’s no shocker. It helps to start sooner then later, and make more time for sleep and solidifying those memories.
…but don’t stress about it
Amanda Ott, a graduating University of Idaho senior in Spanish, said she tries to balance studying with relaxing.
“Realize it’s just school,” Ott said. “At this point in the semester, you’re pretty well already established what your grade’s going to be in the class. So do your best in your final and don’t worry about it.”
Ott said she sets aside time to work and play during the week.
“I don’t worry about homework in my play time,” Ott said. “If I’ve been good throughout the semester, I’ll probably study less during finals week, and if I’ve been a slacker during the semester, I study more.”
Joanna Wilson can be reached at [email protected]