College is an extremely stressful time in many people’s lives. Your whole life is school: exams, projects, papers, quizzes, research, group meetings, etc. You rarely have time to chill out and even when you do, you feel guilty or like there is something productive you should be doing instead. Although finals are over and I’ve made it through my second-to-last round of exams *cue nervous laugh-crying and mental breakdown about my post-grad life*, I will be in stressful academic situations soon enough, and well before my finals. With my seven to eight semesters of college completed, I find I am still learning new ways to study or finding methods to keep sane during finals. These methods are applicable for any test or situation in which you need to keep your focus.
This year, I experimented a lot with music and studying. According to an article in USA Today and many things I have heard in the past, listening to music while you’re studying, especially reading and writing, can have negative effects on retaining the information. So because of this, I sought out to create a study playlist of songs with minimal lyrics, unique beats, or lyrics I did not know and couldn’t get distracted by singing in my own head.
Yes, I could have tried studying without music. However, I find that in a noisy or silent library environment, there are a lot of other distractions that music combats. I also think that having a killer new playlist makes a task exciting. I find that with things like cleaning and working out, having a new or favorite playlist to accompany these activities makes it seem like less of a chore and more enjoyable.
So thanks to Spotify, I was able to find all of this music to study to. Some of these songs have lyrics, and some don’t. Personally, I can’t fill a whole play list with songs without lyrics, even if that’s the best way to study.
1. "Cathedrals EP" -- Cathedrals
The Cathedrals are a band based in San Francisco. They describe themselves as the “convergence of music and art.” Singer Brodie Jenkins has an elegant and radiant voice, which allows you to be calm during a stressful time. My favorite songs off the album are “Harlem,” “Want My Love” and “Want My Love (Acoustic).”
2. “Second Heartbeat” -- Shy Girls
3. “No Wonder I” -- Lake
4. “Earned It (Acoustic Cover)” -- Cameron Bedell & Megan Davies
5. “Blood Stutter -- Color Study Remix” -- Handsome Ghost & Pell
6. “Waking Up” -- Mr Little Jeans
7. “Give Me Something” -- Jarryd James
8. “Gold” -- Kiiara
This is just a really cool song. You’ll see what I mean.
9. “Spectrum” -- GoldLink
This satisfies my love for rap. And peep the unique Tagalog verses.
10. "In Return (Deluxe Edition)" -- ODESZA
This album is my personal favorite for studying. I have gotten into a few of the songs on the original album "In Return," like “Say My Name” and “All We Need.” The beauty of this album is that it has the instrumental versions of these songs in addition to the original songs, which takes the matter of lyrics right out of the equation. It is both soothing and can pump you up at the same time. This music has great beats and instrumentals that keep me energized to study after those long hours in the library.
I hope you can take some of these suggestions and create your own study playlist for your next round of finals, or any of the many other exams throughout the semester.
