Finals

Once again the end of the semester has come and that can only mean one thing. Nope, not locking myself in the library for long hours, not endlessly stressing and pulling out what little hair I have, not scrambling to organize last minute study groups. Finals for me means PROCRASTINATION. Why do I want to spend an entire week freaking out about finals when I can do it for a day? Lets talk economics since that's what my test in on tomorrow, specifically marginal costs and benefits. If you don't know what that is that's ok, neither do I but I'll try to explain. It basically means that if my costs equal my benefits, I've done pretty good for myself. Simply put, if I put in the time studying to get an A but for some reason (the accountants have retaliated by sabotaging my calculator stabbing me with a #2 pencil right before class) I get a B, I got hosed. Or I could just be bad at Econ. Simply put, I do not get much benefit from stressing all week (marginal cost A) when I can stress for a day and kick myself for procrastinating (marginal cost B). It has been my experience that the marginal benefit (my grade on my final) usually turns out to be the same. However, to effectively procrastinate and cram there is a certain method that must be followed. This gets a bit more complex if there are more then one test on the same day, as is my case tomorrow.

Get a good nights sleep the night before.
Wake up semi early - today I woke up at 9am
Eat a good breakfast so you don't have to break for food very often or buy expensive library Nutter-Butters
On your way to the library stop by Dan's to buy 3 energy drinks (Dan's has the best selection)
Find a table where you can spread your stuff out and has a outlet for your laptop, you're going to be there for a long time
It should be around 10 or 11am right now.
If you have more than one test the next day, study for the easiest one first
Frequently get up and move around.
Remember that since you don't have much time you need to have quality study time, therefore Facebook, www.mylifeisaverage.com, blog reading and writing should be kept to a minimum
If people offer to let you study with them, politely decline. They'll only slow you down. And they've been stressing all week so they'll probably want to study something other than what you want to. This is counter productive.

Start your first energy drink around 1pm.
The key to memorization is writing stuff down. Whiteboards, paper, windows, etc. anything is good as long as you can write on it. Writing on whiteboards makes you look smarter to other people in the library. (Good Will Hunting effect) Windows and glass are also good (A Beautiful Mind effect). If you're just writing to memorize that doesn't look too impressive so draw some absurd math equation with graphs and stuff so people think you're doing some crazy problem and are way smarter than them. It doesn't have to make sense at all. In fact if they can't figure it out they'll be even more impressed. You'd be amazed how long people will leave it up there because they're so impressed.
By now you should be on your second test if you have two.
Drink your second energy drink around 6pm.
Study until about 10pm. Drive home, eat dinner and go to bed. No, we're not pulling the allnighter. Only do these in extreme cases.
Go to bed by midnight at the latest
Wake up at 4am and eat a big breakfast
Go to school by 7am to study. This should just be a review of what you studied yesterday. It's also a good chance to ask classmates any questions you have cause everyone is in review mode.
Drink your last energy drink about an hour before your test (thats why you bought 3).
Write any equations you think you'll forget on your test as soon as you get it so you're not trying to remember an hour later.
Get an A. Marginal Cost = Marginal Benefit