Finals week is the week of the semester that every college student dreads. Now it’s that time of year, the library is filled with a wide variety of students and their interesting habits for preparing for finals. I think every student can identify with one of these species of studiers.
1. The Overachiever
These are the people that are in the library for 10 hours straight. They think that every minute they spend not studying is another percentage point they're going to miss on their final. Meals don’t matter and they don’t exist. Coffee is a solid option, as long as someone brings it to them. They can usually be found in a single study room by themselves surrounded by notebooks and textbooks. They only get a couple hours of sleep every night, thanks to the tiny amount of time the library is closed. After a couple days of studying, they generally lose all social skills and forget how to interact with people due to sleep deprivation and information overload. Once finals are over, they are like a whole new person.
2. The Social Butterfly
If you’re lucky enough to have an easy week of finals, you might fall under this category. These students are the ones that might have an easy test or two, but really only go to the library to see friends. Most of the time, they’re just bugging the people that really have stuff to get done. Their “group project” turns into an hour-long get-together containing nothing school related. You might catch them watching Netflix just so they have a reason to be in the library with their friends.
3. The Support System
These people are the real MVPs. These are the brainiacs that retain information so well, they haven’t studied for a test in their life. Therefore, their peers drag them to the library to help them study. They’re basically tutors for the people that are barely passing. This is the rarest form of studier; they are very hard to come by.
4. The Student-Athlete
You can usually spot the athletes fairly easily. The teams tend to take over the big study rooms or the big tables in the library. These people can usually be seen coming straight from practice exhausted wearing sweats and sweatshirts. Most of the time, they’re cramming for tests because of their limited study time and the need for sleep. If you listen carefully, they’re generally complaining about how tired they are.
5. The Sleeper
The people with bags under their eyes, pajamas on, and tangled hair at 8 in the morning are the sneakiest of them all. These are the students that found a secret space in the library to sleep overnight while the library is closed. Whether or not they mean to fall asleep at their corner desk, it happens. They convince themselves that they’re getting a lot of studying done, but they’re always so tired that being in the library isn’t even doing them any good.
6. The Techy
These are the computer science majors that spend more time in the computer labs than their own dorm room. Every time you pass a certain computer classroom, the same students are seated at the same computer every day. Once they finish their final projects, they usually just find random excuses to use the fancy Mac computers. After a couple of days, their eyes are frozen to the screen and they no longer see anything correctly.
7. The Ideal Student
A small amount of the college population falls under this title. They can usually be spotted with a Ziploc of goldfish, their laptop, and a notebook or two. They know how to prioritize their time between studying, sleeping, eating, and sometimes exercise. They spend a healthy amount of time preparing for finals, and they never procrastinate anything. But let’s be honest, being a perfect student is a bit of a stretch for any college student.
