Finals week is something that almost all college students spend the entire semester dreading. Those who aren't worrying about finals day in and day out are the people who are using the "if I pretend it's not there, maybe it'll go away" method. Regardless of how you choose to handle the impending doom of your finals at every end of a semester, most of the time your routine is going to follow a pattern that looks very similar to this:

1. Preparation Stage

This is the stage where you feel the most pumped up about any assignment or activity you have been assigned thus far into the semester. You break out those highlighters that laid unopened in your desk drawer all semester, whip out the sticky notes you used to draw tiny sketches of your STAT professor on and let your confidence flow. You have this strange feeling of fearlessness after your professor tells you not to worry, and that they are confident that you will do well on this exam. They won't include any "tricky questions" and everything can be found in the notes that you have been so diligently taking all semester. Basically- you are ready to kick butt.

2. Confusion Stage

This can come about seemingly quickly after stage 1. It can best be related to coming out of a sugar high. It happens suddenly and leaves you feeling disappointed. You have laid everything out in front of you at this point and are looking all of your notes and handouts right in the metaphorical eyes. It just doesn't seem right that you are being given so huge a final with so little information. Shakespeare is starting to look like computer coding and you can't stop thinking about that leftover piece of pizza in your refrigerator with the stuffed, cheesy crust. Wait, what were you supposed to be doing again?

3. Change of Major Stage

Enter what I like to call "the possibilities daydream." I'd be lying if I said this didn't happen to me once a week at the very least. You get a test or an essay back that you thought you did pretty well on only to find out that your professor could not have disagreed with you more. Your mind starts drifting to the possibilities of that back-up career that you almost made your major, or that eighteen year old kid who made the most aesthetically pleasing video of his gap year that he spent in Santorini. Hearing the change jingle in your pocket makes you realize that you couldn't afford a snack in the airport convenient store let alone an actual plane ticket, and you revert back to your attempt at studying.

4. Second Wind Stage

You look around at all of the aesthetically pleasing stationary that your parents gifted you right before you moved in and remember how it once motivated you. The pep in your step that you had during the first week of school comes rushing back to you, and you are suddenly in your "I CAN DO THIS" mode. You turn on your exercise playlist that took you two years to perfect, think for a quick second how you actually can't afford any other options/the disappointment of your parents, and get back to the grind.

5. Grind Stage

Here is where your logical thinking comes into play. You realize that you've been sitting in your room for the past hour and a half while getting absolutely nothing done. You pack up all of your stuff and head to the Starbucks down the street. With no coffee IV's for legal sale at Starbs, you settle for a venti iced coffee and get to work. You remind yourself that you've made it this far, so you're obviously capable of more than you give yourself credit for.

6. Acceptance Stage

And kid, you've got to remember to love yourself. Finals week has come and gone and you are snug in your childhood bed with Mom cooking dinner downstairs. You gave it all that you could, and there's no turning back now. Final grades will be posted in a week, but no one said you had to look at them.