Teague’s top ten: how to survive finals

Finals are rolling around and people are getting stressed out. Not to worry, I am here to help! As a senior, I have survived many many finals, and I’m here to tell you how you can do the same. If you follow these tips, you too can have a 2.17 GPA — Cs get degrees!

1. Create a study group and steal their notes. Let’s be honest, you haven’t studied all semester, but someone probably has. Find them and create a study group — except it’s just that they share their notes with you and then you still don’t study those notes.
2. Procrastinate. Nothing forces you to study more than the incredible pressure created by putting off studying until 30 minutes before your final exam! You will never be more motivated and productive than during those precious few moments.
3. Change your major. Almost all the pressure will be taken off of finals if you decide you’re never taking another class in the department giving you the most stress. It doesn’t matter if you’re two classes away from the major, if you need to drop it during finals season you can probably find something else to study next semester. Maybe you can become a performance major and specialize in playing the triangle?
4. Consume as much caffeine as possible. Do you feel like you might be overdosing? If you end up in the hospital you’ll probably get out of finals so take your coffee black and chug it! 
5. Develop insomnia. Just don’t sleep. That’s a whole eight more hours of study time!
6. Pray. It doesn’t matter who it is you’re praying to, take all the help you can get! Maybe it’ll be divine intervention that saves your grades?
7. Build a lair and hide there. Find a study caroll, claim a classroom, or rope off a Kildahl bathroom stall and set up shop. Hunker down in a special place, shut out the rest of the world, and focus on your academics!
8. Cry. It can be in the privacy of your own room, in the middle of the natural lands, or during office hours. Crying is a great emotional release, or a great way to score pity points from your professors if you do it in front of them.
9. Bribe your professors. In this economy professors could use a little extra support, and you could use a few more points on your finals. Slip a few one dollar bills under their doors and watch your grades soar!
10. Drop out. Worst case scenario you can always give up! There’s not that much shame in transferring to Gustavus. 

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Teague Peterson-McGuire is from Oconomowoc, Wis.

His majors are film and media studies and Nordic studies.