The Final Stretch

With finals quickly approaching, everyone's stress levels are rising. We all have that moment when we realize we're completely drowned in essays, final tests, and projects, and it seems nearly impossible to complete everything on time. With the arrival of finals, typically comes the arrival of sunshine, the biggest nemesis to college students during the last few weeks of the semester. While all of the tests to study for, essays to write, and books to read say, "you should just go to the library and work on your assignments," the beautiful San Francisco sunshine says, " the beach is really only a 5 minute drive from campus!"

In class all I keep hearing about is different dates for finals, student-professor conferences to schedule, due dates for projects and essays and the like. What most people don't know, is that I also dedicate roughly 40 hours a week to my job. As the store manager, not only am I given even more deadlines and due dates for tasks that need to be completed, but I also have to stay attentive to the needs to everyone else in our store. When I say I work a full-time job, I really mean "full-time." Just because I leave the store does not mean that I am officially done with work. I'm pretty much on call at any time of day for any situation that may occur. 

 Kayla Hedman, as well as Carley Christianson, there are several different things that college students can do to eliminate as much stress as possible during the stressful weeks of finals, and in general. A couple of things they both had in common was making the time to exercise, as well as eating healthy foods, getting adequate amounts of sleep, and taking breaks to do relaxing things like watching Youtube videos to clear your mind. Those are some of the things that I do already to relieve some of the stress that I encounter during the semester. 

One tip they both mentioned that never really occurred to me was learning to say NO. As a student who also manages a store, I constantly find myself spreading my time too thin, which really adds to the stress of trying to get projects, essays and study guides done on time. Never has it really come to my attention that I, and only I am in charge of how I spend my time, and learning to say no to people when I have a lot of tasks to complete would be wise. Trying to balance a social life, work, and school proves itself especially difficult during finals while I try to still have a social life, keep my store running, and still get all of my school work done on time. Semester after semester, finals week continues to be the most difficult time of year due to balancing a hectic, seemingly never ending to do list. 

What different tricks have you tried or found successful during finals week to manage stress levels?