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Finals are one of the most dreaded things in college. Midterms can be bad enough but not all professors give them and they are only a reminder of how you are doing in the class.
Finals are the make or break moment. If you were passing a class you could suddenly fail and visa versa.
So how do you prepare?
1. Figure out if it is cumulative!
Generally professors will know at the beginning of the semester if your final will be cumulative, so everything you learned the semester, or only from the midterm on. You can ask them that in the beginning. This will help you know which information you need to study, if that one concept you didn’t get is important and whether to keep the midterm.
A lot of students take midterms and throw it away or shove it into a deep, dark hole in their house. If your midterm covers information on your final, then you might want to keep that you study from later. Also figure out the right answers to the ones you got wrong.
2. Plan – when is it?
If you have a good professor, then it will clearly be stated on the midterm. Otherwise you may need to hunt through your universities website for the finals schedule. 99.9% of the time it will be created before the first day of school so you have no excuse to not know when it is. Also no excuse to book your flights home early. Make sure you know when it is so you can mark your calendar, clearly. This way you can plan out when you should start preparing, probably around the last week of November, when you really should start studying, first week of December, and go from there!
3. Don’t book your flights until you know when finals are!
Whatever you do, do not book your flights home based on when your last day of classes are. Until all of your professors have confirmed your final date and time, do nothing. Sometimes a professor will say it’s an in-class final and then change it around November, sometimes it will be during finals week and then they’ll change it. If you booked your flight or travel before or on your final, you will not be given an exception, unless it’s extenuating circumstances – and that’s a pain to deal with. Get a confirmation from your teachers before you spend money to go home for Christmas otherwise you could be in a lot of trouble.
4. Organize Notes!
Re-writing notes can be one of the best ways to study. You may want to take the sloppy notes and re-write them, or you may just want to condense the 2 million pages of notes into the pain points that you really need to remember. Writing is the best way to learn. You may think using your computer is better, but you are wrong and can be proven wrong but tons of studies. So don’t think that you know best. Write. Just do it. You will thank me later.
Trust me, I used to be like you and want to use a computer for everything. Once I went to writing, I realized that even if I wasn’t paying 100% attention, I retained so much more than just blindly typing!
5. Confused? Find the smart kid.
If you’re in a class that you are lost in, find the smart kid early. Sure, you can go to tutoring and that may be one way to do it too, but finding the smart kid in the class will be better. They’ll be able to explain what you don’t understand, and they may be able to tutor you as well. Offering to buy them coffee or something to eat is perfect in exchange for passing the class. This isn’t high school where you think you need to look cool and don’t want to ask for help. Sure, that will still happen in college but you need to pass. If you fail you will waste thousands of dollars. It’s not worth it.
6. If it’s talked about, it’s fair game.
If a topic was part of conversation in class, then it is fair game for the final. So paying attention in class is better than watching Netflix or texting. If you don’t pay attention, don’t be shocked when some reference to a conversation in class comes up. Professors always state that anything that occurs in class could appear on the final.
7. Obscure Exams
Sometimes your exam will not be what you expected. It may be a multiple choice test, it may be a one on one conversation, it may be an essay – you never know, unless you ask. Depending on the topic you are studying, you can generally guess what the style will be. If you’re in a theatre class, it’ll probably be reciting lines. If it’s math, it’ll be problems, if it’s English it’ll probably be short answers and essays. But still ask your professor around this time, if you are nervous, to see the style.
8. Don’t expect an A.
If you got into your exams expecting an A across the board, you may be disappointed. First off, your midterm is a good bench mark for your finals so your final will most likely be around there. Additionally, don’t leave an exam, thinking it was easy and expect to do stellar in them all. Professors take points off for the strangest things. If something seems unfair, you can definitely ask a professor about why they graded one way, but most of the time your grade will not change.
