Finals week: The time of over-packed libraries, endless trips to Starbucks, and countless Facebook statuses about tests and studying. This is what I have discovered finals are like here at the University of Rochester. I myself had three finals, but one was during classes. Thankfully, the University provides us with a "reading period," which is basically a few days of no classes, no finals, and all studying. The dorms have 24/7 quiet hours for those who cannot find places in any of the libraries to study, which seems to happen. Of course, every student is different, so don’t think just because other people are sleeping minimally and studying all the time that that will be you as well. It really depends on your classes and the times of your exams. Mine happened to be spread out enough that I made sure to sleep in as long as physically possible and then just study throughout the day. I turned out fine! It is mostly just the stress that I think gets to people, but in the end, if you do the work, you will get the grade you want.
A beautiful thing about reading week is that Connections (a coffee shop similar to Starbucks here on campus) is open all day and all night until finals are over. This is significant because it is right near Gleason Library, which is also open all day and all night, and where many students go to do their studies. Whenever one gets hungry or needs some caffeine, Connections is right there waiting.
Another thing that helped everyone get through this time were all of the study breaks held by student organizations. These are just short periods of time where anyone is welcome to stop their studying, get food, socialize, and maybe even participate in something fun, like a movie. It all depends on which organization is holding which study break, but it is so easy to find them. They make event pages on Facebook, and flyers can be found everywhere. It is a good way to make some students see the light of day every once in a while!
I also attended an event called Breakfast for Dinner during the reading period. I was told that it is a yearly tradition where free breakfast food is served to anyone who wants to come. This year it was at Douglass Dining Center at 9 pm, so a lot of my friends from my floor in Tiernan went. It ended up being a lot of fun to see everyone out without faces buried in books, and it was a nice stress reliever.
In general, no matter where you are, finals are stressful and time consuming. The nice thing about the University of Rochester is that it provides support and help for this crazy time period. It is hard to study every second of every day, and everyone needs to relax and take breaks at some point, so there are plenty of opportunities for that here. A great motivator is that after one’s last final, it is homeward bound and time to enjoy winter break!