Finals week is approaching!

Although it feels like finals are forever away with another whole week of classes left after this week, they are approaching must faster than you are anticipating. There is never as much time to study before finals week as you think there is. It is not effective to study just the weekend before finals like many people choose to do. The best way to truly be prepared for finals is to start studying now. It is not necessary at this point to be doing practice exams and hours after hours of studying, but start by reading over your noted from the beggining of the semester for about 15 minutes a night. If start to look over the stuff that you haven't thought about for over a month it will come back to you much more easily ten if you try to cram the weekend before finals week.
You may not feel like you have time for something like that when all of your classes are assigning final projects and homework assignments, but it will make your life so much easier during finals week so it really is worth it! Why not add a little extra stress on now so you aren't as stressed during finals week right? But really it will also help you to retain the material a lot better if you begin to reveiw it ahead of time. Our brains are not capable of remembering information that is coming in for hours straight which is exactly what ends up happening if you wait to study until the weekend before finals.
Finals week is also the last time you wil have to spend time with your friends before summer so wouldn't you like to have more free time then? On top of having free time, I'm sure you would be more enjoyable to be around if you aren't stressing about the cramming you need to do. So do yourself a favor and start preparing for finals now. It will make your last week of freshmen year at Penn State a lot more enjoyable and you will do better on your finals on top of it!

social life!!!

First semester as I was trying to get the hang of this whole college thing I didn’t realize how important the social aspect of college really is. All I could worry about was getting my school work done and maintaining a 3.4 GPA to stay in the Honors College. There is a lot more in life though than just working and academics. This semester I got involved in the Student Council of the Honors College and it has truly changed my college experience. To feel like you are part of a group that is making a difference but has fun while they do it is a great feeling. I would highly suggest getting involved in some sort of club because it makes you feel more at home in a school as big as Penn State. Of course getting all of your work done is important too. You will have time to do it though even being involved in a club. Club meeting tend to only be one night a week for an hour, and no matter how many classes you take you can definitely give up an hour each week. And then when you have extra time you can get involved in the different activities the club holds. I have been giving tours with the student council on Friday and Sunday afternoons, which is an example of fun little things a club would provide for you to do with a bunch of the friends you meet.

Building a social life in college is a great way to keep yourself happy which in turn will help you maintain your grades. I know when I am happier and having a lot of fun when I’m not doing my work it makes me more willing to get my work done and I can concentrate a lot easier. You’re around a bunch of other people your age through college so take advantage of it! Whether it is a club or just hanging out with friends on your floor, everyone needs a break from studying or you will never really get anything done efficiently. Make your college experience fun while you get a great education, and you will not regret it!

No more exams!!

This seems to be the last big exam week before finals!! It feels great to be done with midterms, but this is not the time to slack off just because you feel like you're done with most of your work for the semester. For most classes the finals are cummulative, so it is necessary to continue doing all of your work and learning all of the new material just as well as you learned the material for all of the other exams. On top of learning the new material you also need to be concerned with the stuff that was on the past exams so your work is not done by any means. The more you prepare ahead of time by studying for exams early, the less studying you will have to do when it comes to finals week. It will also keep your stress levels down for finals if you already feel like you've studied the material enough beforehand and all you really have left is to look over it just as a review a few more times.
That said- I think you definately do need to try to relax still and take in the last few weeks freshmen year! Sounds so weird I can't believe how fast it went. Anyway, if you relax a little bit the last few weeks of classes they you will be all ready to sudy very hard and do well on finals. It would definately be a good idea to try to get enough sleep now so that finals week you are all caught up and if you need to stay up later one night study then it won't be such a big deal. Its still important to get lot of sleep for finals so that you have a rested brain during the exam and you can think straight, but as long as you aren't already sleep deprived  then one night of late studyig won't hurt you much.
Remember still to always take some study breaks. Summer is coming up so go to the gym--get your summer bod back! That won;t happen by eating an entire can of icing but sometimes that is needed too =]