September just whisked away, and we've officially been in school for about a month. This means we're at the point where you've probably gotten your first test back and maybe, you didn't get the score you wanted. As a freshman, the realization that exams in high school and in college are vastly different has just set in.

When I was a freshman, I didn't know what to expect on my finals. Would everything we had ever learned be on there? Would it be mostly new material on the test? During the semester, I would crash-study for my mid-semester exams. Crash-studying means I would basically study everything I needed to know 2-3 days before the exam and then forget about it later. While this worked for the tests that happened throughout the semester, I basically forgot everything by the time it was finals and then would begin to crash-study again. By spring semester, I figured out 3 strategies that can be used to ace finals.

#1. Start Attending Review Sessions

Almost every school offers review sessions for each course. When I was struggling with cellular biology, I attended every single review session for each topic. It didn't matter if I knew the material or didn't remember it at all. Going to a review helped with jogging my memory and making connections between each of the concepts. If your course doesn't have review sessions, you can always make a group of friends in class and host one yourself.

#2. Start Creating Your Own Study Guide

I actually got this advice from my organic chemistry professor. This method works very well if you do it throughout the semester. So, look at the syllabus for the course and see if you have a course schedule that overviews each of the topics you've covered. For each topic, write a couple of notes that summarize the big idea of that unit and then create at least 4-5 questions based on that unit. For example, in my organic chemistry class, I wrote notes about how to do an SN1 mechanism and then created/found 5 questions based on that. I then solved each of the problems and wrote the steps I used to figure it out. When I was studying for my final, I didn't have to learn the entire concept all over again but rather, I went over my summary notes and redid my questions which didn't take as much time and I was able to focus on harder topics.

#3 Take Breaks

I would say this is the most helpful tip. When I was crash-studying, I wouldn't take breaks at all. I would study for 5-7 hours and just keep trudging through it. Not only was this exhausting, but it was mentally tiring as well. In order to combat this, I started making a study schedule where I would plan each hour of my day. This helped me keep on track with exactly what I needed to do and didn't stress me out since I had breaks I could take. Hopefully, keeping each of these tips in mind will make for an easier exam season.