UnsplashHere we are. Finals. Stranded at the end of a semester surrounded by untamed course material on all sides. One false move and your average student is liable to become no more than a pile of failed exams, just another victim of the elements. It’s a jungle out there, but within you is the ability to domesticate the beast that stalks these lecture halls. With just a few tips, you can master the creatures of the classroom and eventually find yourself at the top of the food chain, an all ruling monarch of the grade curve.
1. Know The Terrain
Watch out! Just as green algae can disguise a ten foot plunge into swamp water, so can finals conceal long windedessay questions. Learn as much about the land in which you are about to trek as you can before taking the first step. Not every trip will be through fields blossoming with multiple choice questions. More often than not, you’ll be up to your armpits in short answer questions or stranded among a pack of blank pages with just a “to what extent” question to survive on.
2. Find Friendly Fauna
Professors tend to make their nests on the upper branches of university buildings. A remarkably amiable species, profs are often starved of attention and will welcome any visitor into their abode. If you manifest the natural feeding call of the prof (it sounds a bit like, “I have no idea what I’m doing in this class”), the prof will happily share its bounty with you. This produce, rich in the nutrients needed to pass finals, can be consumed raw or prepared with a side of practice problems.
3. Survival Partners
Humans are herd animals: they benefit from the presence of one another and tend to work together well. It pays to have someone watch your back while you hunt for formulas in the underbrush. Foraging with a companion means splitting up the bounty of the hunt and getting help from a friend gives them the right to call on you in a time of need, so consider roughing it alone every once in a while. Be warned though, when you find yourself being chased by an angry lab exam it’s good to have a second half. You don’t have to outrun it, you just have to outrun your friend.
4. Constructing a Shelter
The key to weathering the storm is knowing how to protect yourself from it. A thick tarp constructed from healthy sleeps is more than enough to rebuff the winds of exhaustion. Building a fire out of textbooks and class notes will help bring out the nutrients in anything you can scrounge up during a day of studying. And when stormy clouds bring down raindrops of extra hours at work or family emergencies, you’ll be glad you settled in a sturdy alcove of responsible scheduling.
5. Chin Up
The old druid who’s walked these lands for nigh past a century knows that you’re not dead until you give up hope. Every year, dozens of students find themselves facing the brink of failure, teetering on the edge between a D- and an F. Buried in a pile of practice finals and CliffsNotes with nothing but pain and hardship ahead, most students will throw in the towel and try again next year. Don’t be one of those students. If there’s even a fraction of fighting spirit left within you then you have to fight no matter how impossible your odds look. Because nothing’s impossible. Improbable, unlikely, but never impossible.
