It’s that time of year again. No, I am not talking about pumpkin spiced lattes and riding boots. I’m talking about midterms; a word that presents students with two choices: Netflix or Club DiMenna.
Let’s be honest; it’s easy to brush midterms aside as if they’re no big deal. It feels like syllabus week just ended and professors really haven’t given many major exams yet. One could argue that you deserve one mess up and you can fix your mistakes by the time finals roll around.
All of the amazing TV series are starting back up. There are apples to be picked and pumpkins to be carved. It seems unreasonable that we are expected to find time to study for midterms too. As far as priorities go, the majority of people just don’t want to be bothered with midterms. You survived half of the class, isn’t that an accomplishment in itself? It seems a little over the top that we have to take a test to prove it. People who select this approach often tend to pretend they’re studying. For example, they tweet about how much they hate midterms or Snapchat the textbook that they never quite mustered up the motivation to open.
The people who fall into this category also tend to try to trick themselves into thinking they studied. This is a classic recurrence for nursing majors who often try to claim that watching “Grey’s Anatomy” is equivalent to studying. In the same way, chemistry majors think that a season or two of “Breaking Bad” should be enough to get an A or at least a B on their midterms. If this sounds like your typical approach to midterms, you might want to consider the other option.
For the second half of Fairfield’s student body, inspiration and proactivity can be found. These are the students who realize that acing their midterms will make the rest of their semester a lot more enjoyable. They do not give into FOMO (fear of missing out) on Saturday afternoons. They pack their backpacks, grab a Venti and camp out in an isolated cubicle for the day. Luckily for them, not all students take midterms this seriously so the library is not nearly as packed as it is for finals.
These are the students who put hours in at the library now so that they won’t have to spend the rest of the semester there trying to catch up. Somehow they resist the urge to snuggle up in bed and watch Halloween movies. They abandon their social networks and their social lives and make midterms their number one concern. For this period of time, these students eat, sleep and breathe midterms, which usually translates to a lack of eating and sleeping due to a shortage of time and an excess of studying. Typically, statistics show that these are the students who end up with the higher grades.
If sleeping with your text book under your bed and hoping for the best has resulted in great grades in the past, stick with it. If you need to make a 25 page study guide for each class and memorize every PowerPoint, then get to work. Midterms are all about figuring out what works for you and doing just that. Personally, I will drinking my fourth cup of coffee for the day and drowning in a sea of books and papers in the library. Maybe I’ll see you there!
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