Final exams are right around the corner, and Fall Semester 2013 will be ending soon. Here are some of my own tips to help you prepare for finals.

1. Take everything one step at a time. Deal with one assignment at a time, and one class at time. If you don’t do one thing at time, you’ll definitely overwhelm yourself and end up getting way too stressed. You want to avoid getting stressed around finals because it could affect your test taking abilities.

2. Get lots of sleep! Sleep is one of the most important things to remember because if you aren’t well rested it could really take a toll on you. Try to get AT LEAST eight full hours of sleep. Even though you feel you’re on crunch time for studying make a decent time schedule, so you get the necessary sleep first. Turn off your cellphones, and ignore all social networks late at night at all costs or any other non studying activities. Sleep over facebook.

3. Make note cards. One of the most effective ways of studying for me is making note cards to study from. They’re simple to make, and you can fill them up with all the important key facts you need to know for your final. Writing down things over and over again help them get stuck in your brain. Plus, notecards are so easy to carry around and you can take them before class to study as well.

4. Eat Whole Foods. If you are eating nothing but a bunch of junk food, it will make you slouchy and lazy. The week of finals you need to be eating whole foods with lots of nutrients, so it charges up your brain. Some easy examples are, whole grains, broccoli, any green leafy veggies, nuts, tomatoes, blueberries, blackberries, and even sprinkling sage over your foods can increase focus of the brain.

5. Stay focused. Don’t let your personal life intervene with your school or studying habits. Your friends party can wait, school is more important, whether you like to think so or not. Take a weekend off, and take the time to relax, regroup and last but not least study, study, study!

6. Try your best. When it comes down to it, all you can do is your best for finals. My best advice to you is to take your time on questions, read everything through, and make sure you check your answers after you finish. Those are simple things you can do to make sure you get all those little extra points.

Good luck everyone! I hope my tips will help you for finals and prepare you for the future.