To the freshman about to take finals,

You’re probably terrified for finals in some way, even if you won’t admit it. It’s understandable to be scared for a week of cumulative exams that determine 20-30% of your grade for that class. But I’m here to tell you- you can do it. You did it in high school and you’ll do it in college.

Some advice- don’t calculate what grade you need on an exam to keep your grade in a class. That will either stress you out or will make you a little to relaxed for an exam. Just study as hard as you can for each exam and go in and give it all you have. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t about to be easy but that doesn’t mean it’s about to be impossible either. You’ve taken midterms already so you know the material that will be on your exam.

Find a library, or really anywhere to study and focus in. Take breaks and reward yourself for your hard work. Sleep. It’s really not going to do you any good to have studied for the last 18 hours straight if you can’t stay awake during the exam (this might be where caffeine come in for some).

Don’t make finals up to be something bigger than they are. At the same time though, don’t blow finals off. Are they important? Public opinion says yes. Is one class going to determine your GPA? No. Is one class, or even semester, going to determine your success in life? Definitely not. Keep some perspective on all of this. While these exams seem like the most important thing in your life right now, know that one day it won’t seem like a big deal at all. But this is your first round of finals and classes do tend to get harder as time goes on, so it would make sense to want to really kill this first round of exams.

Focus on the quality of your studying instead of the quantity of it. There will come a point when you know you are ready for an exam and that you aren’t going to learn anything new by continuing to study- so don’t continue to study. Call it quits. Go to bed. Or at least move onto another class if you can’t justify going to sleep at that point.

You’ve made it this far and you’ll make it through to the end. You have resources other than just your notes (ie office hours, those are actually helpful). Finals might be scary now, but once you’ve gone through them you’ll realize that they’re just another thing you’ll have to do each semester. If you put in the time and legitimate effort, you’ll come away with a half decent score.

To all the freshman about to take final, you can do this. You can take these finals with minimal anxiety attacks. You can not fail all of your classes. You’ve got this.

Sincerely,

Someone who was in your shoes not that long ago