It goes with Thanksgiving break. One deep breath, and we’re in the middle of finals. If you’ve been putting off studying until now, know that you’re not in terrible trouble. Yet.
You just have to do a little bit of extra work during the holiday break.
Of course, studying during the holiday becomes a problem for students who are planning to spend more time with family and friends. Getting away from the social scene to study or write a paper is not as simple as you would think. Everyone wants to see you, and (hopefully) you want to see them.
But before the break ever gets started, a good plan might be to send your professors emails to clarify anything that might be confusing about your assignments. You must remember that they’re getting ready to go on break as well and probably don’t want to deal with that annoying student who bothers them all the time in class. They are focused on the turkey fixins, too.
Once you get home, or whereever you’re headed for Thanksgiving, know that if you try to do school work, you are only going to get mad at your family because of impatience.
Reading at night when everyone is asleep is OK, but who really wants to do that when you can watch reruns of “Family Guy”?
This means you are going to have to plan an escape from the land of family responsibilities. The only barbwire fence in this situation is timing; in every family there is usually an event coordinator. This is the person (warden) who bosses you around from one thing to the next; tells you what to do and what needs to be done.
Ask them questions about what’s going on and when so that you can see a two-hour break on the horizon. When you see that break, make a run for the fences. Simply announce, “I’m going to study. Be back in two hours.”
If there is any remorse or fallout from this announcement or if anyone asks you to do something, just do it. If you don’t, you’ve just put yourself in the middle of an argument where you were clearly right, but you have no real way to point that out without sounding pompous.
So just say yes and cut up that onion. It will pay off in the long run.
Once you finally get away, you might just want to sit there and defrag instead of study Latin verb conjugations. So you should know that any studying is going to start with you sitting by yourself for 30 minutes, thinking about freedom and the joys that silence brings to the world.
Supplies are another key element for a study session. If you have to go back home to pick up a book, your chances for some peace have been squashed. One of the best ways to make sure that this doesn’t happen is to condense everything to the bare essentials.
The more items that you try to bring with you, the better chance you have of forgetting the one thing that you need. So make a nerdy checklist of things that you’ll need in order to study.
If you want to put multiple subjects into one binder or folder, think of a way to break them up from one another so you don’t waste time looking for one subject or another.
Then, everything is set and it finally is time to actually study. Keep in mind that if you’ve decided to study anywhere other than a library, things are going to be a little loud. Remember that the folks around you didn’t plan on ruining someone’s study break. So bring headphones for music and if you have to move to a quieter location, be polite. It’s not their fault.
It’s also important to keep your eye on the clock. You might want to be an adult, but you don’t want your whole family waiting up for you to get home or waiting for you to get to the table to eat.
Once you get home, if they ask if you need any help, just tell them, “Thanks, but I’ve got it.”
Because no one should have to study for a class that their not in on Thanksgiving.
