Finals Season - Tumblr Posts

Hey girl I'm about to have my first batch of finals this year what are your tips for surviving? I feel so confused on the best ways to prepare 😭😭 thanks 🙏

omg as a self proclaimed academic weapon whose current projected GPA range for the end of semester is 3.9 - 4.0 and who went to a college prep high school i feel like i have finals/midterms down to a science

I have some general finals steps and then some even more general advise where I expand on the tips below the cut. I got kind of carried away😭 pls let me know if you need me to expand on anything

Step 1. List out everything that's due (all projects, essays, and exams) in order of when they're do. If multiple things are due the same day, order them from the assignment you're least confident in to the assignment you're most confident in.

Step 2. Personalize your schedule. Half the battle of finals is a mental game bc it's easy to see all the things you have to do and freeze bc it feels like nothing's going to get done or that you'll be working every second of the day until finals end. If you break your assignments into blocks/chunks, you'll still be able to take small breaks and feel less overwhelmed.

So like if you have 3 essays and 2 tests within two to three days of each other, tell yourself you'll write 2 essays and study for one test on the first day or that you'll write one essay everyday and study on the last two days. If that makes sense lol.

this doesn't mean to over schedule your life!! i don't write out time stamps for every break, i just like to do assignments a day or two in advance so that I can take breaks if that makes sense.

Step 3. Do your projects/essays first. I've always been someone that likes doing projects before studying for tests. Because projects/essays are something that have tangible ends,, you'll feel a lot more productive/better getting those out of the way. The exception to this is if you have a big test coming that's before your essays/project, study first lol.

Step 4. Make study guides. Ik it's annoying, but you're more likely to study more if you have a cheat sheet you can just look over. More on this in general advise.

-- This is just general advice. ---

Tip 1. Study guides are life savers. It's one thing to have all of your notes, but typing/writing everything you need so that it's in one place makes it so much easier to take advantage of small moments. I do best on tests when I make my study guide in advanced and then just reread it a bunch the night before and then right before the test.

If it's a harder topic with more information and you think you need more time with the info, I still think a study guide is a great way to just have something that you can look at whenever you have a a few minutes. You're more likely to study more when you have something that you can just pull out and read a few times than if you just have miscellaneous notes you have to waste time looking for/gathering.

Tip 2. Plan/accept study breaks. Sometimes you just need to do something else. It feels like you're wasting time, but if you're super tired/overwhelmed, you're definitely not working efficiently, so if your body is telling you to walk around for a little or scroll on your phone for fifteen minutes or do something else to mentally get away, accept it.

Tip 3. Don't fall for the 11:59 trap. This might just be bc I'm a night person so I do a lot of homework late at night, but I think knowing something is due at midnight adds some extra stress. It makes it harder to take breaks and gets more overwhelming bc the deadline is right there.

I like to make the day before the 11:59 deadline my personal deadline. Ofc there are exceptions to this, like if the assignment is smaller,, like a discussion post or just answering some homework questions, and you know it won't take up your entire day and you'll have time, it's okay to leave it. Especially if you have larger assignments or other things to study for.

Tip 4. Do the harder assignments first. This may be personal preference, but I always do the more draining assignments first. This doesn't always mean the longest/objectively the hardest. Sometimes it's just getting your least favorite/worst subject out of the way so that you can check it off your list.

Tip 5. Personal reward system. This is why it's good to have hobbies! it's not a good idea to make needs rewards, like food/water and bathroom breaks,, please don't do that!!

but the amount of times i've told myself that if i finish/get to a certain point in an assignment i can go onto tumblr and read a fic is insane 😭

small rewards like that that are just fun are super helpful,, so if you have any hobbies that are like reading, scrolling on your phone, watching a certain show, etc,, you can use that to motivate you as long as you can quantify it.

Like don't say you can scroll on your phone as a reward unless you're done for the day, say you can scroll on your phone for X amount of time so that it doesn't take up the entire day,, if that makes sense lol

that's why i tend to like other rewards better, because phones aren't set up to have a natural, satisfying end. But if you tell yourself that you can watch an episode of a TV show or read a specific fic or read a chapter of a book,, you'll feel better when it's over. That's more of a personal opinion though.

sorry for how long this is 😭i hope it helps

*casting an anti-seasonal-depression spell over you* off you go

6|1|20 finals season is here

I've decided I'm going to end my 100 days of productivity early and just post, because that is what I've been doing anyway.

Finals season is in January for me and I have all of my exams sprinkled all throughout the month. This is how I study for the exams- I read over my notes and after sometime sit down and write everything I remember on a spare piece of paper. Then I check if I'd forgotten anything or gotten something wrong and then go over those things again, if there are any :)

Wishing everyone else a lot of strenght♡

9|1|20 I have my first two college finals tomorrow. I feel fairly prepared for one of them and terribly not prepared for the other. It seems that everyone in my course has similar sentiments, because our prof didn't really communicate what sort of things might be in the exam.

Anyway, wish me luck :') I'm calmed by the fact that I can retake it two more times if I need to and that I don't have to worry about grades, since I won't be pursuing this field any further next school year.

10|1|20 My first two finals in university☆

I just came back from my first finals and well, I have hope I passed both of them. It definitely wasn't as terrible as I had expected :) I'm so happy right now that I didn't have a meltdown :D

I will find out the results next week so I'll keep you updated~

14|1|20 finally stopped procrastinating :')

So after my finals on Friday I decided to take a day of, because I was so tired from studying, and then that break turned into procrastination. But I'm back to my senses now :D and I finished lecture notes for a course about medieval universities and literature that I didn't get to during the semester. I also took a test on my computer at home for one of my courses :).

I got final test results on those two Friday exams and I passed both of them! And I somehow got an A on the one I was dreading the most!

I'm so happy about it♡ Although I don't care about grades this year, since I will be going somewhere else next school year, it still feels damn nice to do well :D I suppose I might be an overachiever sometimes.

15. 1. 2020 Started an essay that's due next week :)

I have another this upcoming Monday and figured four days is enough time to study for it, so instead of doing that I started writing an essay. It's due next weekend, but I want to submit it early, because I need next week to prepare for my last finals.

So far my first finals season is going really smoothly, since I was able to leave a lot of time between all my exams :D I will definitely keep doing it like this if I can. I find it's better for me to have my stress evenly distributed over time, rather than having it all at once♡

18. 1. 2019 Still deep in finals :D

I haven't posted in a few days, because I'm so all over the place at the moment. But for the most part I'm studying for my final in medieval universities that's on Monday :) Wish me luck ♡

20. 1. 2020 Another final

Today I had my exam for Literary life at medieval universities. I think it went pretty well, the way the questions were formulated was very comparable to history tests I took in highschool. I'll keep you updated :)

23. 1. 2020 What I've been up to :)

I haven't posted in a while, but I passed another final, went to Ikea and finished another essay. Right now I have just two finals left and their both oral - from English and literature. Today I prepared my English presentation! The topic I chose is Creative and cultural industries: What is the value of culture and does it contribute to the economy? :)

27. 1. 2020: I have no photo from my study, so have an unoriginal meme :D Yeah, today wasn't too fun for me. Because the finals I have left are both oral exams, I'm mostly just talking to myself out loud in my room these days and I probably won't post untill all my finals are done on Thursday. I'm so tired and done with everything :') but I'm motivated to push through and be satisfied with the lowest grade if it means going home for a little break ♡ Best of luck to anyone else studying for exams!

30. 1. 2020 My first finals are over!

Today was my last exam in this semester and it went waaaaay better than I could have dreamed of. I feel really proud of myself on this day, so I'm just having a quiet afternoon to myself reading Robert Louis Stevenson's The Suicide Club.

I know some places people have to annotate books for school but we don't really teach literature like that here in the Czech Republic. It's just something I'd started doing for fun, because I really enjoy it. Some books just fill me with many thoughts :D

Now I will have two weeks off before the spring semester starts :) I'll see what I get up to and if I'll have something to post for you ♡

8. 6. 2020 - I actually did a thing! 🥰

So my information science final is next week and I looked at all of our lecture material and took notes only today. Did anyone else spend the entirety of quarantine just mentally and physically wasting away?

Better late than never but knowing me I will still feel bad about it untill the end of time.

9. 6. 2020 - I continue to do things 😊

My blog is getting so much activity these past days and honwstly guys I don't deserve all this love from you 😅 I think the idea of a studyblr is to be in some way helpful and I'm not that, I don't think.

But I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart. I hope something about me and my posts manages to inspire or reassure you. ❤

19. 7. 2020 - Time flies way too fast!

I didn't even realize it's already been like a month since my last post. 😅 I passed two of my finals and am having the rest at the end of summer. My uni lowkey saved my ass by stretching the finals period all the way into September, since mental health and social distancing really hit me like a ton of bricks and for some of my courses I haven't studied or read any of our material yet. 😓

Now I'm back home and I decided to clear out my room and change the layout. It's been the same for my eight years of highschool depression, so getting a fresh space seemed like a good idea. 🙂

29. 7. 2020 - We are out of town to visit my sister for her birthday :). She still has to go to work though, so I get to work on my schoolwork in the mornings.

6. 8. 2020 - Took an involuntary break from my studying, because I had some stress registering classes and my brain went ~bloop after that for a couple of days :D But now I'm sort of back with newfound excitement, so I guess taking the break instead of forcing it was worth it :)

28. 8. 2020 - I know I'm not the best at always posting; it's because I often don't have anything to post.

Anyway, the past two days I finally kicked myself to study for my philosophy final. I worked really hard on it and got a full score on my exam, but now I'm really tired :). I hope I can get better at not leaving things for the last minute because I don't think it's physically and mentally good for me in the long run.

Mom took me to see Bring The Soul in the evening afterwards. I didn't even know they were screening at our local theatre!

I'd made an IG account just because none of my friends use tumblr, but they want to stalk my posts :D. So if you prefer Instagram, you can follow me @mymediocrestudyblr; I'll be posting pretty much the same things...

12. 9. 2020 - Long time no see :) As consolidation, have a bullet journal spread from August I was really happy with.

In the meantime, I passed two more exams and I'll have my last one this Monday. Busy weekend~ But that's my fault for procrastinating this for literal months until the very last possible moment.

I'm not too stressed about it anymore since it'll all be over in a few days <3