Final Stretch

As we’re are all stressing over final coming up, the only thing keeping us going is the thought that in two weeks we will be done with classes and exams and school!! I know this is the only thing that encourages me to keep staying up late. With the holidays coming up and the last couple weeks being all together with friends, we want to relax and celebrate but the problem is were all so stressed about finals it’s so difficult to enjoy sitting down away from books. Back in high school, finals were a big deal and still stressful but it’s very different in college. They could for a much larger portion of our final grades and because freshmen have never experienced college finals, we have the fear of the unknown.

This may not be true for everyone, but classes at Penn State have been more challenging, more time consuming, and take a lot of outside studying to do well in class than in high school. So just imagining what the finals are like compared to high school…..it’s just very overwhelming. The challenging part is that in college, so much material that is stretched out in an entire school year in high school is squished into 3 months for us. We have much more time to understand material, work on essays, complete projects, and prepare for exams. I have not had much time to fully relax while being at Penn State with all the work we’ve been given. There are so many essays to write, projects, video projects, and finals to worry about I don’t know how to organize everything. These last 2 weeks will be the hardest to get through but we just need to keep in mind that after all this work, we have 3 weeks to finally relax. And we have earned these weeks.

With the pressures of not only finals week coming up but also all the work we have to hand in before finals, we will be testing the skills we have learned as being college students. Many call this the final stretch and we can’t just give up now when we’re so close to finishing. Just one more final push and we can finally sleep!

2 thoughts on “Final Stretch

  1. Finals week in high school never felt like a big deal because the test often had little affect on our grade, but it’s just the opposite here. With finals making up around 40% of our final grade in some classes, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. But even though finals are much more stressful in college , the break is also more rewarding since we’ll have no homework, and can relax in preparation for a new semester and fresh start.

  2. I couldn’t agree more about the stress levels of finals. I think you were exactly right; because none of us have ever experienced college finals before, none of us know what to expect and the pressure is doubled. Knowing that up to 30% of your grade weighs on how you do on a single two hour test is pretty scary, no matter how high your grade is going in. I’m just trying to tell myself that everything will be OK and I plan on trying to focus more on getting good sleep next week than staying up until 4:00 cramming every night. They (hopefully) can’t be that much harder than they were in high school though, and once we make it through, then we’re done!

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