The semester is halfway through, and Ohio University students are preparing for a week of midterms. It’s five days of high stress, zero sleep and caffeine overload.
Midterms arrive quickly and unexpectedly, sending many students into a panic Sunday night.
OU’s campus shifts from high activity to low activity every half-semester with students camping out in places such as Alden Library, Grover Center and Donkey Coffee for hours on end to study. These spots become the places to be during exam weeks, and students scramble to find any available seat.
While we may feel the expectation to be busy and cram like everyone else during exam week, we could save ourselves the headache and simply start reviewing materials earlier.
When everyone is complaining about how little they have slept, pulling an all-nighter starts to feel less like a bad decision and more like a normal part of midterm week.
Being exhausted can start to feel like proof we are working hard, but being busy does not necessarily mean we are being productive. We don’t have to spend our nights studying instead of sleeping to pass our midterms.
Canvas gives students access to assignments, exam dates and course materials, making it easy for students to see what is coming and plan. Yet, we still find excuses to put off studying until the last minute.
A syllabus can tell us when an exam is coming, the Canvas calendar provides a full-month overview of assignment dates and professors often post study guides or review materials. The problem is we don't always look at these resources until we feel the pressure to.
Time management is not the issue. It’s having the discipline to resist procrastination. We convince ourselves there is always time to study later, but time runs quicker than we like to admit.
Consequently, students walk around campus mentally drained after pulling all-nighters, reaching for caffeine to make up for the sleep they lost.
Caffeine consumption increases during exam weeks. It can boost our duration of alertness, allowing us to study longer, but it can negatively impact performance. Caffeine affects sleep quality and allows drowsiness to linger into the following day. As a result, we can’t fully process everything we are trying to memorize.
Sleep deprivation and caffeine go hand in hand, creating a routine when we use energy drinks or coffee to make up for the sleep we sacrificed the night before.
Instead of putting ourselves through constant blue light exposure from our laptops, all-nighters and caffeine-fueled jitters, students should start studying before the pressure of midterm week forces us to. Avoiding this gauntlet of a week is something we should have mastered by now.
Putting off reviewing content seems harmless until it’s the night before, when weeks of material suddenly becomes your responsibility to learn in a matter of hours. We don’t need to participate in the midterm-week ritual of exhaustion.
Not only are we sabotaging our chances of doing well on our midterms, but procrastination becomes an easy habit to fall into when everyone around us is doing the same thing.
The issue is not the exam itself, it’s the way we prepare for it. If we already know what midterm week looks like, maybe it’s time to stop acting surprised when it gets here.
Aleni Bender is a junior studying organizational communication at Ohio University. Please note the opinions expressed in this column do not represent those of The Post. Want to talk to Aleni about her column? Email her at ab285023@ohio.edu
