If you are anything like me, the experience of finals is pretty much the same every year. Even after taking finals the past three years, the emotional unraveling process is generally the same for all of us. It probably goes something like this.
1. You know finals are coming up. You already plan on being stressed, but maybe this year will not be as bad this year so you will flawlessly keep your head up. With a hopeful thought that you can put a brave face on.
2. Around this same time as phase one, before your professors even begin discussing your final exams, your stress and anxiety will rise quickly, but you try to shake it off.
3. You knew finals were coming, and that the end is near. You didn’t realize how much more effort you would have to put into the semester before it ended.
4. But you shouldn’t feel bad at all. Everyone in your class is in the same, sinking boat. Nobody knows how it will end.
5. Panic.
6. Your day-to-day motto till the end.
7. When your professor gives you an extra assignment on top of trying to learn everything.
8. Your humor is gone.
9. You begin questioning if you have even done anything right this semester, and you think about everything you could have done differently to prepare your grade before you blow finals.
10. But you know you need to get your act together and get busy if you want to have a chance of succeeding. You reach out to your friends to bond over the stress in the best way possible.
11. There is less than a week before finals. You finish up last minute assignments, start studying like crazy, trying not to think about wanting to go home, and probably trying to avoid all other responsibilities.
12. But you still maintain your appearance and it people ask you to hang out, you just decline.
13. The stress and exhaustion continue to take a toll on your emotions.
14. It is cram time. You don’t even know when the last time you showered was, or when you got more than two hours of sleep in a twenty-hour period. You grow more exhausted, stressed, and irritable. Delirious even.
15. You get irritated when your friends tell you they have no finals this semester.
16. You have lost every ounce of motivation. No energy at all.
17. But your friends give you a little motivation and push to make it through.
18. Overwhelmed, you gain a little inspiration.
19. It is time. The night before your exam. You get last minute studying in. You wake up the next morning, and you go with the “look good, feel good” approach.
20. Let’s get real though, due to your exhaustion, you do not wake up and get ready. You look worse than you thought.
21. Can I just take the test already? Why is my professor late?
22. It’s over. Finally. You can finally breathe.
