It’s December, and that means that students at the University of Connecticut are getting ready for finals week with exams from Monday, Dec. 9 to Saturday, Dec. 14.
“I’m just mainly using flashcards and Quizlet,” said fifth-semester economics major Raj Dhage. “I have a free membership, so I’ve been using that lately. I’ve been studying with my friends using not only flashcards, but I’ve been using Pearson, you know, the website that helps with economics.”
Third-semester engineering major Emily Sevigny has one final exam during finals week, but a total of five exams this week and next.
“I’m not feeling great, honestly, just because I’m taking classes that are so content heavy, so it’s a lot of memorization that I’m not used to,” Sevigny said.
Kawtar Nadama, a fifth-semester mechanical engineering major has mostly cumulative finals.
“I’m a little nervous, especially because my finals tend to be cumulative, so you just have to know so much content,” Nadama said. “It gets a little overwhelming, especially when you didn’t understand a concept fully earlier in the semester and now it’s really time to understand.”
Nadama has been meeting up with and studying with friends to help deal with stress.
“It can be very overwhelming, I am a little overwhelmed, especially because I also had two exams today, so that doesn’t give me much time to really focus on studying for finals,” Nadama said. “I also have projects and stuff due, so its definitely a lot. It’s definitely the most overwhelming time of the year.”
First-year mechanical engineering Ph.D. candidate Ismael Morales has two exams during finals week.
“It’s just time management, so right now, I’m just trying to finish projects,” Morales said. “My main strategy to get ready for finals is first to do a one or two page cheat sheet and then use that cheat sheet to practice homework problems and book problems.”
Morales discussed his strategies for dealing with stress.
“Just taking time off; I like playing video games. It’s a nice way to destress,” Morales said. “And here and there, taking 20-minute breaks to just do something fun on my laptop, or just completely forget about assignments for a while.”
Fifth-semester biology major Stephanie Ruby was feeling stressed but hopeful about finals.
“The upcoming finals are very stressful, very, very stressful but I’m hopeful that it will be a good outcome,” Ruby said. “I have to put in the work for what I want.”
Fourth-semester molecular and cell biology major Jackson Alward was feeling anxious about his upcoming exams.
“Even though I’ve been in school all year, I feel like I don’t really know what I’m doing,” Alward said. “It feels like I’ve forgotten a lot or that I never really learned everything. It feels that way, even though it’s probably not. It’s a lot of pressure.”