Midterm Preparation: Move with Intention

Ry’N Good
eXperience Magazine Editor

Did you know that we tend to hold tension and pressure in our forehead, jaws, and shoulders? Like right now, relax your shoulders and breath. Believe it or not, holding tension within our bodies is very common.

If you pay attention, you will notice that we hold tension by doing the simplest things such as walking to class or lying in bed scrolling through social media. Hey, it is not your fault and it is not mine either. Life tends to move fast especially during these times.

One thing that has snuck up on us as students are midterms. When I think of midterm week, I always remember the episode of “A Different World ” when Freddie, Dwayne, and the other characters were stressing during midterm week, staying up all night, flash cards all over the table in the study rooms, and barely eating.

I imagine our professors narrating how midterm week is going for the students like Sinbad did in the episode. Well, to avoid all those stressful things, here are a few tips I try to do when I know I have a full week ahead.

I have recently learned that a planner takes you a long way. I was one of those people who refused to write my schedules down. It took me being late to classes, forgetting assignments, and double booking myself a million times to finally realize I need to plan my life out. You would be surprised how far documenting which day a midterm is on and designating a day to study for it will take you.

Writing it out makes your mind less cluttered and you will see that your week is not as jam packed as you thought it was. The planner lays it out for your eyes to plainly see. When you see your week on paper, your mind and your forehead hold less tension.

My last tip is to have pep talks with your friends. I am lucky to be surrounded by friends who text me randomly saying “good luck on this or that,” or us randomly breaking into deep conversations about our goals and aspirations in life and constantly reminding each other that we still have a lot of work to do so no slacking.

Us college students must stick together. We are all going through the same thing, so if you see a peer looking down on the plaza or tweeting that they are unmotivated, take the time to remind them how far they have come in their college career and that this race will be over soon with the diploma as our trophy. Good luck on your midterms everyone and make sure you rock out!