Avoiding Death during Dead Week
In just under 5 days, I will begin the grueling week long marathon that is exam week. With a total of 5 exams to take during the 7 day period, it’s going to be an unpleasant week.
But luckily, once I’m done with exams I get to be rewarded by having my wisdom teeth pulled out. (That was sarcasm). I was going to get them pulled out during Thanksgiving Break but I decided against it as I needed as much wisdom as I could get over finals week.
Anyways, so this week is what we call “dead week.” The one week before finals where we are finishing up classes and preparing for finals. Its the calm before the storm. We finish up classes on Thursday and then we have one day on Friday that we call a “reading day.” A reading day is a day where there can be nothing assigned/due/exams. Its like the day that Vanderbilt declares as “the sabbath”. A day of rest.
I’ll be starting Saturday with a one-two combo of Spanish and Evolution. Then Monday comes around with Anatomy. I then have Biology on Thursday and finally enter Tebow time as I finish up with Physics. I officially dub it Tebow time, as I may need a miracle to make it out of that exam alive.
So, how do I prepare for this bloodbath? Well,it all starts during dead week. You get an early start so that you don’t actually die during exams. I will try to fight off the evil temptations of Facebook and will head over to the library as many times as possible this week. It is vital that you stake out a study space in the library that you can claim home in preparation for finals week.
That’s the easy part. Now comes the hard part. You have to sit there and study. Like actually study. Not the usual routine of 5 minutes of work, 10 minutes of Facebook. Rinse and repeat. I have first hand experience that contrary to popular belief, this technique does not work. Try 30 minutes of work, 5 minutes of Facebook. You’ll be able to stay focused longer and you’ll still be able to squeeze some Facebook stalking into your schedule.
I’ve also found it helps to move around every now and then, maybe even move studying areas just so you don’t sit in the same place for multiples hours and get burned out. It could be beneficial to have a place to study in the morning until lunch time, grab lunch and then study at a different library. Vanderbilt has plenty of different libraries to study at so the options are endless.
So, those are the things i will be working on for this week so that I can better prepare for finals. We’ll see how it goes.
Wish me luck!