With the UCD Exam season just around the corner our Student Ambassador Sinead looks at some of the exam advice many students ignore!
When it comes to exam time, there’s certain bits of advice that we’ve all heard a thousand times over – but that doesn’t mean we always listen! Here’s just a few of the many bits of advice that go in one ear and our the other when it comes to Study Week…
Eat Healthy
How many times have you heard this one? Brain food, they say. Avocados and sweet potato and fish. Sounds great in theory, but unless you’re super nerd who has been working hard all semester, you probably don’t have time to cycle to your nearest Lidl to pick up these delicacies, never mind the preparation time necessary to make them into a meal! Take-out, on the other hand, get’s delivered right to your door… Just sayin’. It also involves very little cleaning up afterwards, which is an added bonus! And to all those who cry for a varied diet – there’s pizza, kebabs, chinese, indian….
Get a Good Night’s Sleep
Oh sleep. I remember you. Once upon a time, I’d hit snooze 10 times in a row just to spend longer in your embrace. Alas, my computer battery life is about an hour, and if I’m not in the library before 9 am, I’ll be without a plug for the day (blame the early risers that started that trend!) The caffeine addiction that comes with this sleep pattern is then going to keep you up throughout the night, thus waving goodbye to a full 8 hours any time in the near future. I’d like to say I’ll go to bed early to make up for this dreadful morning start, but let’s face it, I’m going to stay up cramming or ranting on facebook about how much I need to cram. C’est la vie.
Balancing a social life
Depending on whether you study on or off campus, you probably have different problems with this one. If off campus, there’s no need to see fellow human beings, which leads to no need to get dressed, which leads to no need to shower, or leave the bed…. Eventually, personal hygiene becomes at risk, and even your parents will start to judge you, and remind you how talking to other people is good for you! On the other hand, those of you who study on campus probably suffer from an endless stream of fellow procrastinators, and spend 90% of your day on ten minute coffee breaks (even if you don’t drink coffee!) Meanwhile, you’re notes will remain unopened but clogging up a desk upstairs, and those latecomers searching for a place to study will eye up your plug venomously. Ah well sure.
Exercise
All those gym sessions you clocked up at the start of the semester seem a long time ago now, and all benefits are slowly being replaced by take-out pudginess returning you to your original state. Of course, you don’t actually care at this stage, because Ball season is over and you’ve already got a killer new profiler out of it that’ll last you exam season. So really, there’s no incentive to take a few hours out of your busy cramming schedule to sweat it out in the gym, only to emerge feeling tired, hungry and in no way up for returning to the library. That’ll be a no, then?
Don’t Stress
LOL. Thanks Mom. Very helpful, given you’ll be the first one to go ballistic if I fail anything! Even the most chill of chill people can start to show signs of stress when exams are looming, and all of a sudden those 9 am lectures you never bothered come in for seem like a bad idea. We all know that awful feeling of opening up a set of lecture slides mere days before the exam and realising, this is my first time seeing this information. Ever. And you wonder why I’m stressed? But maybe we are over-reacting, maybe it’s not the end of the world, maybe – did that just say 30% fail rate?!?!
