Your long and slow descent into revision hell

Exams are round the corner and you’re starting to think it’s all getting a bit much. Or maybe you haven’t even started yet. Either way your parents will be bloody livid with you.

But which catacomb of revision hell are you currently being tortured?

Avoiding revision at all costs

You’ll start revising on Monday. Everyone knows you can only start work at the beginning of the week. There’s no point bothering today.

And then comes Monday… They are showing back-to-back episodes of How I Met Your Mother on E4. And you simply must watch them all again on E4+1 just in case you missed anything. You can’t take any chances.

Reflect on your past achievements

When you’re feeling down and de-motivated, all you have to do is think about your past academic achievements. You got an A* in Science AND Additional Science. This 2:1 is so in the bag.

And when you generally just can’t be arsed anymore, just think: Do you really need a 2:1? Don’t forget, you also got an A* in General Studies. You don’t actually need this degree.

You’ve got this

Making a to-do list/revision schedule

You begin to write one, but this plan quickly comes undone when you are unsure as to how to fit the entire year of lectures (80 per cent of which you probably haven’t been to) onto an Excel spreadsheet.

So you opt to make a list instead. When complete, it looks absolutely terrifying. You really haven’t done anything this year. But oh well, one successful day complete. You’ll officially make a start on revision tomorrow.

You won’t follow it. Don’t bother.

Letting everyone know how hard you are working

This normally means sending out a Snapchat to everybody, to let them know what a great student you are. Because of course, if you haven’t told everyone you are spending the day studying, then you might as well not do it.

You wonder about that keen girl from your seminar who always answers every question.

You give her a quick Facebook message of “Hey!! How is the revision going?” in hopes that she’ll say she hasn’t done anything, just so you can brag about just how productive your 15 minutes of flicking through slides has been.

You must showcase your commitment to your degree no matter what. Nobody is more committed than you right now.

Procrastinate, procrastinate, procrastinate

Since you’re already on Facebook messaging the Keeno, you may as well just scroll through your newsfeed. You’re already logged in, right? It would be a waste otherwise.

Your flatmate shared that rubbish listicle link about struggles that every student goes through. You have to read it. It’s about you. You’re a student, struggling, and omg bbz you’re totes no7 haha x

Go to the library

Everyone is distracting you in your room. You have to go to the library to actually do some work. You’d be way too embarrassed to go on Facebook there. The Library atmosphere will force you to work.

But there’s no seats. Well there are. But no seats with sockets. What if your laptop dies? There’s no point sitting at a table with no sockets. You’ll just go get a coffee quickly and when you return there will be loads more seats.

The queue was really long but it’s okay because now you have your caffeine boost you are 100% ready to hit the books. Still no seats. The universe is telling you to just start again tomorrow. You can’t ignore the universe.

Take the day off, it’s too late to get anything significant done now. Just get up early tomorrow and you’ll do great.

You deserve this lunch break even though you aren’t hungry, and even though you haven’t actually done any work yet.

Jealousy/anger towards successful people

We all have that one friend who is always on the ball at exam time, and who is determined to make everyone else feel like shit.

She says she’s learnt all of her term 1 flashcards. She has flashcards? You need flashcards – you must beat her.

If you are a first year

You don’t get the flashcards. You get realistic. This year doesn’t count. You don’t need to kill yourself over all of this work. It will all work out. 40% just isn’t that difficult. Everyone just needs to relax.

Defeated (and mostly lazy), you accept the truth: “I’ll take the 40 per cent.” Back to messing around in the library.

Strong first year study diet of YouTube videos and Doritos

If you are in any other year

You don’t get flashcards either. But you realise that the 2:1 won’t magically appear in between your Netflix Marathons and 3pm lay-ins. And so begins the actual revision. You buckle down, and actually do the work.

During the process, there will be tears, rage, chocolate, self-loathing (cured by some more chocolate) and eventually, the realisation that your course isn’t actually that shit.