Finals begin next week, but if you know what’s good for you, you started studying a long time ago.
College finals can be a drastic shift from the high school finals to which most students are accustomed.
“In high school it didn’t feel like I had to study. It was a big school, and we had a finals week, but it wasn’t intense,” freshman Bob Linebarger said. “However, I did feel prepared for my first college finals because I have upperclassmen friends who helped me out. But I did have to study a lot more than I did in high school.”
Linebarger said that not working during finals week as well as not having to participate in theater will allow him more time to study.
Junior Jordan Olsen took days off from work in order to better manage his time during finals week.
Olsen, who has five finals over a three-day period and two consecutive days with two finals on each day, said he plans to start studying early.
He said so far, he’s noticed a big improvement from the study habits he practiced as a freshman.
“I had three papers due this week. I’d been working on them since February, and I got my early research out of the way,” he said. “When I was a freshman, I never started studying more than a week or two early.”
Senior Bliss Hartnett, a tutor with Student Academic Services, said it is common for students to procrastinate with their schoolwork.
“There is a definite increase (in the number of students seeking tutoring) during finals week and close to midterms,” she said. “Students start to realize that they have less and less opportunities to improve their grades, especially in classes that have cumulative finals where students need to learn or get right points that they missed the first time around.”
Hartnett offered advice to students during finals week.
“Don’t procrastinate. The sooner you start to review or go in and get help, the better. You don’t want to cram the night before and just try to regurgitate the information,” she said. “Use dead day and the weekends before and during finals week to study and go over old tests. For me, I can’t sit down for large chunks of time, like using an entire afternoon to cram. It’s a matter of sitting down and doing it in your spare time.”
Using one’s spare time to study is not a new practice.
Assistant Professor of History John Richards said the word “study” is a derivative of the Latin “studium,” meaning enthusiasm or zeal, while the word “scholar” is derived from the Greek and then Latin “schola,” meaning rest or leisure.
“In the ancient world, to study was to pursue something that had no political or economic benefit. It was what you did in those hours when you were supposed to be resting from work,” he said, “A scholar is someone who has leisure time because of the hard work of their parents or scholarships or the state and has the zeal not to waste it.”
Learning how to be a good student is a difficult thing, Richards said.
“It’s something that you do on your own – only the individual can do that,” he said. “My job is to teach you to realize it, but I can’t force you to do that, to realize that knowledge for the sake of knowledge is a good thing.”
Senior D.J. Watkins said he chose to learn even though he was making good money running his own lawn service.
“I could have not gone to college and lived off of my business, but my desire to make money was offset by my desire to get a good education,” he said. “Baker gives you a breadth that allows you to do a variety of different things. I own my own landscaping business, but I am going to work for a biotech firm.”
Watkins manages his own landscaping and property management business, DJW LLC, while juggling his schoolwork, which includes four finals this semester as well as two major projects.
Watkins said the key to managing his time is planning.
“I keep a list of my short-, medium- and long-term goals that I re-evaluate once a week, and I cross-reference those with to do lists,” he said.
Watkins said he keeps separate “to do lists” for the three areas of his routine – school, work and his personal life – and maintains a calendar.
Watkins echoed the sentiments of Hartnett and Richards that utilizing spare time is essential to good time management.
“It comes down to making the most of your day – ‘carpe diem’ and the element of making your vision a reality,” he said. “You can do a lot with the tools you’ve been given, but what it comes down to is, ‘Either you think you can, or you think you can’t – either way you’ll be right.'”
Students name their top finals week distractions
?Spring weather- wanting to be outside and playing
?Friends who finish their finals early
?Friends who have few or no finals
?Leisure activities
?Facebook.com
?Champions League soccer
?Work
?Other projects due for school during finals week
?YouTube.com
?Insect infestation
?”Light at the End of the Tunnel” syndrome
?Senioritis
?Study breaks