Madison Shumway
Life Editor
Dear Badvice,
Every semester, I tell myself I’ll stop procrastinating and turn in my assignments on time. Then finals roll around, and I break down during closed week because I have 5 papers to write and need a 107% on my final exam. How do I survive finals?
Sincerely,
Crying During Closed Week
Dear Crying During Closed Week,
First things first: You’re not alone. Millions of college students have felt this struggle since the dawn of time (or at least the dawn of the modern academic system), and approximately zero of them have dealt with it like reasonable adults. Rest assured that virtually everyone around you is running around like a chicken with its head too full of Biology 1100 vocabulary terms.
So, what is a stressed-out college student to do? Anyone who’s taken Intro to Psych for gen-ed credit will recognize this necessary cycle:
THE FIVE STAGES OF FINALS:
1. DENIAL
This is the most long-lasting, and ultimately life-wrecking phase in the pre-finals semester. It begins on approximately the first day of classes and ends when you are confronted with the realization that completing the work required of your course load is now humanly impossible.
During this stage, you believe, mistakenly and foolishly, that there’s an abundance of time to write every research paper, study for every test and scribble out every extra-credit assignment outlined on your Moodle dashboard. As the end of the semester draws closer, you still cling to the delusion that yes, you can write that 10-page paper, compile an entire art portfolio, code two websites, adequately study for four exams, eat more than one meal a day that isn’t a Taco Bell Quesarito, avoid getting fired from your part-time job and make an appearance at Emily’s kickback this Saturday. Everything is fine. Tell yourself this. Everything is fine.
2. ANGER
Now you have realized that everything is, indeed, not fine, and it is in fact burning to the ground all around you. Congratulations! Now, panic.
As reality sets in and you are faced with every book chapter you need to read and every forum post you need to type out, you will begin to feel a slow, burning fury build in your gut. You have been thrust into academic misery, and there is no one to blame but yourself.
You are pissed now, pissed at yourself for being such a fool, such a lazy, Netflix-binging sloth. You have been a student for at least a dozen years now. Why have you
Not learned? Look at yourself in the mirror and channel your anger. It will carry you to May 6.
3. BARGAINING
The fire of self-aimed fury is now lit under your sad, stressed rear. It is now time for the bargaining stage in your finals cycle. This stage is perhaps the most crucial to your end-of-semester success, as it requires a flurry of late-night cramming sessions and a series of writing stints that conclude at dawn.
Make the most of your own bargaining stage by desperately entering every semester’s grades into an online GPA calculator and Googling new deities to which to aim your prayers.
4. DEPRESSION
Not to be confused with the crippling existential dread that plagues all too many college students, this phase of your end-of-semester struggle entails crying yourself to sleep at 3 A.M. and imbibing excessive amounts of your coping mechanism of choice. Curl up in a ball, reflect on the futility of your actions in relation to the vastness of the universe and in the depths of your suffering, achieve peace in your procrastination-induced predicament.
5. ACCEPTANCE
In the middle of one caffeine-fueled homework binge, you will feel the onset of the last stage of finals. Somewhere between giddiness and desperation is a well-fought-for calm that comes all at once in a rush: acceptance. You have acquiesced to your plummeting GPA, surrendered to the academic destruction your apathy and poor planning has wrought. Finals week will end, your grades will post to your official transcript, you will evade your parents’ questions, summer will turn to fall and a new semester will begin. The eventuality of the cycle’s repetition inevitable.
Disclaimer: Badvice is a satirical advice column. Please do not follow its advice, or you could end up living life like a Badvice writer. And your mother does not want that for you.
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