Worse Than Indigestion by Samantha

Worse Than Indigestion by Samantha - January 2014 Scholarship Essay

We all have tried it before. Some of us, multiple times. The typical all-nighter before that big test. The test your teacher tells you is worth 50% of your grade. The same test that you knew about weeks before in advance but chose the day before to actually begin the studying process. Not just the day before, but the night before, around 11 o’clock p.m. when the topic of school casually is brought up while texting one of your many friends before bed. “No biggie,” you think, “I’ve got time.” Pulling out your crumpled, sorry-excuse of notes from the bottom of your backpack, opening up to that very foreign looking chapter in your very, very unused textbook, you begin to understand the magnitude of the situation that lays before you and realization slowly sets. What begins at the pit of your stomach and spreads, chilling your entire body and leaving you feeling rather dejected, isn’t indigestion. It isn’t fatal either which arguably is the worst part. If you were dead, you would have a perfectly reasonable excuse for not showing up to school, lying in your grave in gratitude. No, you are very much alive, alive and hopeless.

What a coincidence that these are the same exact nights you also realize how borderline your grade already is, eh? So you begin to cram. Hard. Desperately. The second stage of the all-nighter hits you in the face full force: panic mode. Papers fly in the air. Eraser bits layer the ground. Your rooms becomes a battle field and your warrior cries are muffled by the deafening music you blast in your room in attempt to stay awake. Wanting to tell you to turn out the lights, your mom peeps her head in your room, sees the crazed look in your blood-shot eyes and coffee cup armed in hand, and quickly retreats, shutting the door behind her as fast as possible.

You managed to survive the night, hooray, all is well!…until the abnormally thick-looking test paper is passed back from the hands of your menacing teacher to the front desk, to finally the back row where you are seated, hoping no one notices the heavy, dark bags under your eyes and the lack of showering you definitely did not prioritize in the morning. The test lands on your desk with a thud that seems to echo through the entire classroom. You retained nothing, you lower your standards to guessing and praying for a C-, and you stare at the first page of the test until the allocated time is over. After the test, head lowered in shame as you pass by your teacher’s desk walking out the classroom, you promise you’ll never again put yourself through an all-nighter, and maybe you really don’t that week or the week after. But inevitably, sometime or another, you’ll always find yourself back to square one, back to hysterical self induced stress, and when you do you’ll be paying for it.

It was on one of my many miserable, all-nighters that I realized the vicious cycle must end. How, was another question. I began by asking my friends how they studied, friends who I knew were repeatedly scoring high on the same tests I wasn’t so great at. Some of my friends suggested making my own study guides, paying attention more in class, group study sessions, making flashcards, and watching online tutorial videos.

I chose the route of making my own study guide before each test, and not just on the night before either. Each study guide I gradually worked on here and there the weeks following up to test day; after everyday’s lecture I would add more to my guides. Organization to my guides, I learned, proved to be a beneficial factor to easy comprehension. I used the highlighter for key dates and court cases in my AP Government class and math formulas for my AP Statistics class. I bolded ideas and italicized subpoints. When I saved my study guides in my computer, I made sure I had a clear and uniform title to my document, ensuring straightforward accessibility. While making my first study guide, I recognized that I was retaining more of the information I was taught in class. On test day, this revelation was supported by pure numbers. Scoring a significantly higher grade compared to my previous tests, I knew that I would continue to be making my study guides the rest of the year.

When it comes down to it, your study habits are extremely important if you value your academic performance. Doing well in school is not everything, but I would argue that it is at least something. Good grades allow you acceptance into college, awards in scholarships, and the studying habits and discipline you develop when valuing your education in school can be useful and applied to all aspects to your life. Not everyone profits from studying the same way, and finding the way that works best for you can single handedly save you from long and sleepless nights. Working on study guides, for me, definitely was an efficient way to earning good grades and less headaches.