The only pep talk you need before finals

Look into the minds of every college student at the moment with finals week approaching and you will find 10 percent drive, 10 percent determination and 80 percent procrastination. Your study habits that seem as if you actually just sit there and check your phone every ten minutes, and get food, and then watch Netflix in between may need to change, or they may not.

But, at the core of every student, procrastinator or the “one-hour-studying-means-one-hour-off” type of student, there is a goal. Passing. Whether to impress your parents, your peers, or your future business employers with the word “Dean’s List” next to your name, odds are, you are trying to earn someone else’s validation. Since when did this approval stem from only others around us? When did it veer off and end up in someone else’s hands other than our own? Yes, when doing well on a final we are proud of ourselves, but as time goes on, this five-minute joy gets turned over and spread to our parents, friends and family. Why is this joy not ours, and ours only? Why do we only feel worthy when others validate our success?

I am guilty of this. The other day after getting a 95 on my Spanish final (felt great until I realized it was only 5 percent of my final grade),  I rushed to post my grade on my Snapchat story, call my parents and tell everyone I saw how well I did. The countless hours studying in the Stacks trying to silently eat my Chipotle had finally paid off. The dreary walks home from the library in the dense fog at 3am actually had some benefit. But I wasn’t proud of myself then for having accomplished an all-nighter in the library without sleeping in the Harry Potter room, (Who can sleep on those couches anyways?) it was only after posting on social media my grade that I could fully bathe in the success.

Looking around  that day I found that everyone, including myself, had their phones in hand. Did you really study in the Stacks if you did not snap chat story it? Guess not. For some reason, swiping right to pull up the time on snapchat after taking a picture of yourself delirious and unmotivated at 2am, hours before an exam and posting it as your story has become the face of all Penn State students. We all strive to be the Alpha, the one who stays at the library the longest and posts the best “studying” picture for social media, once of course we have found the outlet to charge our dead smart phones.

Like Socrates once said, “I know one thing: that I know nothing.” Instead of trying to be society’s opinion of “perfect” and trying to please those that you may not even know, look in the mirror, and realize you do not need others praise to feel worth. As a perfectionist myself, I tend to want to impress a teacher, more than I actually appreciate what I am learning. Knowledge is power, fellow classmates. Since when did we solely memorize facts just to pass a test? Since when did we only read books we were being tested on? We’re too worried about passing and getting jobs after college that we forget learning can be kinda cool. But finals to us are just tests to see how much knowledge learned in one semester we can re-learn in just one week. That is all. Finals that will not matter in five years down the line when we have real jobs in the real world. So, to everyone going into finals week, perfectionists or procrastinators alike, empower yourselves with the sleepless nights of cramming at the Pattee Library, for those bits of information can either grant you an A on a test that will loose its meaning after its taken, or someday help you in the real world with your real job.

My Econ professor finished off the semester with a speech this morning. He said that he taught two classes. A freshman class and a senior class. He did not know what exactly happened between freshman year and senior year, but something had changed. He went on saying that he believes the students were apathetic. There was a unique passion in the freshman’s eyes when he taught, a certain curiosity, that was lost by senior year. He said that just because we go to Penn State does not make us special or unique, it is what we do with our life, and the individuals we are, which make us special. He warned us to not go through the motions of college. “Find a passion, find your purpose, find what pays and find what you love,” Dr. Wooten said. That is what you should be doing with your life. I think it is important for us Penn Staters to wake up and realize that it is not our finals, our grades or our hard work in the Stacks that will make us successful. It is our fire that we go into Freshman year with, that makes us unique and successful.

Good luck, my friends. You’re almost done.