For this week’s blog, we asked some of our current Residence Life Mentors for their tips on getting through exams. Here’s what they had to say:
“The best way to manage exam time is to find balance. To find balance, you need to be organised – making time to study and making time not to study. Healthy mind in a healthy body, they say.
Being healthy is indispensable: eat well, do sports, go have a drink with some friends, watch a series. What I do for myself is I list the things I need to study, search or write for the day in bullet points on a piece of paper. Once I complete a bullet point, I tick the bullet point. It makes feel like I accomplished something today, which is reassuring and soothing and allows you to know your progress with your studies.
Moreover, studying is all about motivation, therefore if you have one or two friends that you can trust to study with, bundle motivation and study together.” – Maxence
For help achieving your own exams balance, check out the Study Smarter tips and Healthy Halls activities from the Sports Park; and if you find you suffer from exam stress, you may find this workbook from the Wellbeing team helpful in tackling it.
“My tip with exams would be to try and fit in a healthy breakfast before the exam. While it might be tempting to skip it for more last minute revision, a few more minutes of sleep or you might have a nervous stomach, by the time you are halfway through an exam you might feel low on energy or downright hungry.
Another tip would be not to revise too late into the night. Personally I’d stop at 10pm at the latest, so you can de-stress and actually sleep. This is particularly key on the nights just before the exam.” – Nikolai
If you don’t fancy preparing your own pre-exam breakfast, don’t forget you can always buy one from one of the many outlets on campus, and even students who don’t live in catered halls can still purchase a meal. We hope that you’re all managing to get plenty of sleep, but don’t forget that you can always contact Estate Patrol if you’re disturbed by noise, or have a chat with Nightline if you just need someone to talk to.
We wish you all the best of luck with your exams.
Residence Life Helen