What Not to Do During Finals Week

So in a little less than two weeks, it will be summer time! However, the only thing keeping us from enjoying sweet, sweet summer are those dreaded final exams. With a case of spring fever and wanting to jump in the pool, how does one throw study time into the mix?

There's always a few like this in class with you, haha!

Here are some ideas of what not to do while preparing for finals week!

Preparation tips for Finals!

               That dreaded time of the semester is just around the corner! Finals week is the time of the year where everyone tends to stress over, and where coffee becomes your best friend. Even though this week can be full packed of preparation and anxiety, there are resources on campus that can help you get mentally prepared for finals.

Finals Week is Upon Us!

So as you may know and may have heard, Finals Week is here and imminent, leading to insane amounts of cramming, an obscene amount of coffee consumption, and all nighters all around. While it may be a little bit better for your test grade because it allows you more study time, it is not the best thing for your health. When your body is stressed out, it is more prone to getting sick! And everyone knows that being sick during Finals is the worst. 

"No, Linus, it doesn't have to be. Not with these handy dandy tips!"

Carver's Guide to: Dealing With Stress

The end of the first semester is right around the corner, which means papers, projects, and tests are coming all at once.  Unfortunately, with the substantial increase in work comes a substantial amount of stress.  Some people have methods of coping with stress, but others just let it build up until they cannot handle it anymore.   According to Harvard, many people do not handle stress correctly.  My goal with this blog is to help you maintain your health, both physically and mentally, during highly stressful periods of time.

Course Evaluations!

I just want to remind all the students here at UT Tyler to do a course evaluation online. You can find the course evaluation on your “myuttyler” account under student home page and then "system access". This is very important for each and every department because it gives the professors an opportunity to recognize their performance from a student point of view! It’s completely anonymous, but the head of the department gets to review those and make their department even better.

Some of the advantages from doing a course evaluation online are that the student gets to see their grades earlier than the students who don’t take the time to do the evaluation. Everyone will have till May 6^th to finish up their course evaluation online and then be able to see their grades starting May 16. The others who don't complete the evaluation have to wait until May 22! Everyone wants early access to your grades! Also, when you're taking the evaluation, here are two pointer to make sure its submitted correctly:

- Make sure you get a congratulations message on the screen - only then will you be completely finished!
- Be sure to answer all questions for each class. The Submit button will not work if any questions are missed!
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Another reminder to end this semester smoothly is that students need to make sure and look at the final's schedule online! You don’t want to miss your final by not getting to class on time or don’t want any confusion on when and what time your each final will be held. Since everyone worked so hard to maintain a great semester, take this opportunity to organize yourself with the final schedule.

Plan your schedule accordingly since finals are just a week away!

Avoid last minute hassle!

Be on time!

Study hard!

And Good Luck everyone!

Know YOUR Study Needs!

As we are all aware, Finals Week is here at UT Tyler! This is my Finals Week face: 

Speaking of Finals Week, it's definitely time to hit the books hard and crack down on those study habits! 

Now, everyone has different preferences for studying, so in order to study effectively, you need to know yourself well enough to know what type environment you need for studying! 

Personally, I have to have something going on in the background - usually music! My choice of music entertainment comes from Pandora. You can create a free account, then have all kinds of different "stations" based on a song, artist, or genre! My Pandora consists of a lot of *chill* stations like Matt Nathanson, Boyce Avenue, Ed Sheeran, and Colbie Caillat. 

As for the environment, my preference is to study in a comfortable setting like somewhere in my house, my room, or the Business Building (where most of my classes are located). There's also some other GREAT places around campus for studying! 

So, my overall suggestions for your studies this week are: 

1. Know yourself and what you need. Adjust your study times/places/habits accordingly. 

2. Find a comfortable environment that will optimize your studying. 

3. Don't stress! Prepare as well as you can, and do your best on the test. There's nothing more you can do! 

Comment below and let me know some of your study tips/habits, and good luck this week fellow students! :) 

Cram-tastic Monday

As we all know, today is the last dead day before finals, which start tomorrow. For a lot of us, that means... cramming. It doesn't matter that you've had a week to look at everything (like I did). No, that was sleeping/eating out/happy fun time. Now it's time to digest all that we've neglected in order to face finals in about 12 hours. All the bulleted lists, sticky notes, faded sheets of notebook paper come out and it's a race against the clock. At some point, we've all done it. So long as nothing looks unfamiliar, chances are you're fine and just panicking, like I often do. Yours truly has 3 finals in the morning, the first of which is at 8 a.m. Luckily, there's a pretty large gap in between the second and last final I have to take, so it's not all that bad. More studying time, no?
I'm up for the challenge, though. I'm confident I can do a good enough job studying, but I'm going to need a good night's sleep to be ready. I'm not one to pound energy drinks to get through the day; I'd rather get a good amount of sleep. I find it helps me remember things a lot better than when I jittery or sugar-high. I read somewhere a while ago having protein to start your day is a good way to be energized, which is why I have peanut butter toast before a test. So, so long as I've got my toast and a full night of sleep, I'll be more than fine.

Hopefully, the first day of final exams will go off without a hitch for all of us. If anything, we can all at least hope for the best. Good luck, everyone!

Important things to remember for the next two weeks...

I know, I know. It’s that time a year again and everyone’s talking about it. By now, you probably feel like:

If you haven’t been stuck under an avalanche of work for the last couple weeks, you’ve probably noticed by now we have about two weeks left of school. No doubt you’ve made 25 To Do lists, restarted 24 of them, and still feel you don’t have enough time to do any work, even if you’ve been working for hours at a time. Stress, am I right? Well, if you’ve got the crunch week blues, keep in mind some things to do that will keep you sane.

Eat something

• I’m going to be the first to cop to this. You’ve been working on things since 8 a.m. and the last time you looked at your clock was around...2ish? It’s now 6 p.m. and the only thing you can vaguely remember is showering and APA style. If the last time you remember eating is 9 a.m. last Wednesday, it’s probably time to eat again. I know you’re probably looking at the screen with indignant rage screaming, “Food? I have no time for this food! It’s getting close to finals week!” Just having snacks on hand is a good way to stave off the munchies, as well as starving to death while you’re writing that 67 page final exam paper (I’m looking at you, English majors). It also keeps you energized and full so you’re ready to keep going through the rest of the week.