WRAPPING IT UP–AND BONUS ADVICE FROM AN EXPERT

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For most of you, this is the last week of class. March Madness has morphed into April—which is not, I hope, the cruellest month! You’re clearing the decks for finals. You will be getting that last assignment in, finishing journals and lab write-ups for submission, attending last lectures, checking to see that your grades for work done have been properly recorded . . .

Motivation may have taken a hit in March, and if it did, good for you for carrying on. I hope some of the tools I’ve shared have helped. Now is the time of year that adrenaline can be kicking in, as you see the finish line at the end, as the fact of finals becomes a near reality. 

It would be easy in the crush of wrapping up to start skipping meals, shorting yourself on sleep, and setting R&R to zero. Yes, you have a lot on your to-do list. Yes, you have deadlines. Yes, you want to do each piece of work as well as possible.

But also yes, you want to be in top shape for studying for and writing exams. So take several moments today for two things:

  • Plan and schedule for doable self-care:
    • Healthy but quick-prep food,
    • Short stretch, exercise and mindfulness breaks,
    • Small treats, and
    • Daily review and reflection.
  • Schedule an hour for today or early this week to map out your study plan for exams–don’t wait until the last day of class to do this. That hour will involve
    • Reviewing the syllabus (Guess how many of my clients have said they were sorry they reviewed the syllabus.),
    • Itemising what you want to review for each exam,
    • Estimating the time that each will take, and
    • Scheduling each study block (in pencil).

You have now taken care of the mental clutter of “How am I going to . . . What am I going to need to . . .” and can focus on wrapping up the term, and maybe getting started on reviewing for finals. 

During these next weeks, endorse for every effort you make, including treats taken, stretches stretched. For getting this far in a very tough year. For staying the course.

Now for the bonus advice from an expert. I asked some of my clients what advice they would give themselves if they could go back and advise themselves at the beginning of their frosh year–there is no better expert than a student at providing this type of insight:

Knowing what I know now, I would give my first-year self-two major pieces of advice. The first piece of advice would be that time and effort equals success when taking any course. When I was a new student, I always told myself that specific courses were too challenging to succeed in and that I couldn’t do well because I wasn’t smart enough. However, as time went on, I realized that this was not true. I learned that the reality is that even with the most challenging courses, you can succeed regardless of how smart you are if you put in the necessary time and effort to succeed. The second piece of advice I would give myself is to learn what works best for you when studying and trust it. Despite finding academic success, for far too long, I always stressed that I wasn’t studying correctly and that it would lead to academic failure. My inability to recognize early on that what I was doing was working and giving me success led to unnecessary stress. Now that I know what works best for me and trust my studying methods, I have a far greater school-life balance! 

And that’s what these blogs and my coaching are about: Helping you find what works best for you, putting it into practice, and trusting yourself that it will work.

So on into the final week of class. Connect with me if you’d like work on strategizing these last weeks [email protected] 

The information in this blog cannot take the place of support from your own mental health professional or community health resources. Reach out to them. And IF YOU ARE IN CRISIS PLEASE DIAL 911.