Organize Me: Finals Week

It's that time of the year! Winter break is right around the corner, which means I get spend a whole month at home with family and friends celebrating the holidays and New Years. This also means that it's time for the dreaded Finals Week! But in all honesty I'm not that worried. That sounds terrible but it's because I'm ready! I know what I need to do and I have everything I need to do it. I want everyone to feel this way about their Finals because the more confident you are about what you know, the better you will do! I promise! So here it is!

1. Make a Finals Binder!
This is my holy grail of Finals week! It has everything I could ever need for Finals. It keeps me organized and it keeps everything in one place.

 This is the front of my binder. It has my exam schedule on it and what I am being tested on for each exam. I also decided to put a fun quote on the front to make me laugh while I am stressed and studying. I also chose to add glitter cause theres nothing that glitter can't improve!!

This is the inside of the binder. It has a section for each exam. In each section I keep all of my study guides for each test. I don't want to keep everything in here because I want to be able to take it everywhere and if it's too heavy I won't want to. The lined paper on the front is for me to make study guides and take notes on things as I need to. I also only want to focus on what I need to know for finals so I don't get distracted by anything else (God forbid I study something I don't need to!).

Things I do want in each section:

• Study Guide for each chapter that highlights the key points of each chapter in my own words so I understand them
• Old quizzes on the chapter to review the kind of problems the teacher will ask
• Powerpoints from previous chapters

2. Make Study Guides

Making study guides is a great way to study. The act of writing out the notes and copying them is a way to remember things. On the study guide you want:

• The key points from the chapter
• These are usually the things that the teacher talks about most during class. 
• Your own words
• you want everything written in a  way you understand it. You do not want to simply copy the notes from the power point. 
• Examples
• This is also really important for math problems because you want to see what you need to do for different types of problems
• You can also use examples for explaining different concepts. You can make these up on your own or you can use ones your teacher uses in class whatever works for you!

3. Find a Good Place to Study

You want a place where you can focus. Somewhere that doesn't have a lot of distractions and somewhere you're not going to fall asleep! The library is always great but its usually very full during Finals Week. Most classrooms will be open during finals week and those will usually be very empty and very quiet. Find somewhere you like and you're not going to mind going to. So somewhere across campus might not be the best idea if it means you will never go there.

These are just some of my best tips for Finals Week. But, when it comes to studying, you need to know how you learn best. So Good Luck! 

May the curve be ever in your favor!

xoxo