Hi Anteaters! I hope you all are doing alright and getting through midterms well. I just finished with my midterms thankfully, but I’ve noticed that the vibe around campus has been rather gloomy and just from looking at everyones faces, I can tell midterms did a number on some students. Fortunately for me no all-nighters were pulled, but my sleep schedule was definitely messed up. I’ve been going to bed around 3am almost every night from staying up and working on midterm projects, but now that it’s over I’m looking forward to getting my sleep schedule back on track. Hopefully you all are able to as well! And thankfully most of my midterms were project or essay based, so they felt like more of a workload as they lasted about two weeks per project, but I’d honestly prefer that over taking a timed exam any day. For those of you who had to seriously lock in and cram hard for an exam that determined a large amount of your grade….respect, and go treat yourself to something sweet, you earned it! Sweet treats actually kept me going through midterm projects rather than waiting until the end haha. Having a little snack or drink, really anything that can add a little happiness to a study session pushes me forward. In order to prepare for midterms week, I went on a massive H-mart run to gather all of my studying snacks lol.
There was really too much to choose from and I ended up almost buying out the whole store lol. But anyways! The point is it’s good to treat yourself to a little something to keep you moving forward; don’t feel like you don’t deserve it because you all worked extremely hard on your first midterms no matter the outcome! I also found some of my new favorite study spots during midterms. A lot of people I know say they can only work in environments where there are completely no distractions and wehre there is complete silence. However, I find that to be the worst environment for me to study in oddly enough. The dead silence of a library just is so eerie to me and I end up distracting myself anyways. I found that the best studying environment for me were places that had a slight background noise and a cosy atmosphere…like a cafe!
I ended up spending a lot of my time studying either in Brandywine where it had a cozy vibe if you sat in the couch area, or at Cha For Tea where there was tastey food to fuel my study sessions and a nice atmosphere when it wasn’t too busy. (Cha took so much of my money during midterms ㅜㅇㅜ ) I need more recommendations on study places that don’t require money lol. (But also if you have any cafe recommendations plz share!) I also got to check out the study rooms in the science library when I had to meet up with classmates for our midterm projects. Those were super nice, and I think I might try to study there more often as well. It has a slightly more relaxed environment on the 5th floor with lots of cozy seating areas too. Hopefully, by now everyone is just finishing up with their midterms and can finally enjoy some time to themselves. You deserve some rest no matter the outcome! Now go and enjoy your three day weekend, and see you all next time!! >o<