Finals Without Really Trying

Dear freshmen,

Finals week is finally before us. You may be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of conflicting advice bombarding you from people who are trying to be helpful. “Don’t panic,” they say. “Now might be a good time to freak out,” they later claim, when you wake up a mere 20 minutes after the start of your statistics exam. I myself distinctly remember asking two professors for finals advice my freshman year. “The right person to talk to is your TF,” the first one cheerfully told me. “Please stop talking,” the other suggested.

You have also likely seen countless Buzzfeed “articles” explaining how finals week works or some of the other dozens of pieces saying equally little with fewer pictures but potentially more hyperlinks. Ignore all of the finals advice published online. It is thoroughly useless and will not help you. Instead, this article will give you real advice that will help you get through finals week. Read it in its entirety.

In preparation for finals week, you should first learn the hours of Dunkin’ Donuts. Starbucks is for hipsters, who sip double-whipped peppermint mocha frappalattes and write “underappreciated works of contemporary societal analysis.” Starbucks is not for students who don’t know which line is the supply curve. And Starbucks is certainly not for those of us who are desperately trying to figure out how to spell Newey-West heteroskedasticity, much less understand which ordinal direction Newey refers to or its relation to library shelving systems. So go to Dunkin’, which, unfortunately, closes at midnight.

Luckily, though, Lamont is open 24/7 during finals week, and it functions as a well-furnished homeless shelter for unfortunate souls sexiled by their goddamned roommates who don’t give a rat’s behind about finals because, well, because they’re morons, or else really smart people with healthy life perspectives. Some people even voluntarily seek out Lamont for a good night’s sleep. Freshmen, particularly those not living in Apley Court, take note—the armchairs in Lamont have more springs than your mattresses and a higher thread count than your sheets. Even more conveniently, Lamont is located in the Yard right by Mass. Ave, for those who have never stumbled upon it on a hazy weekend night.

Speaking of weekend nights, many a young freshman has been caught off guard by the plethora of student drinking that takes place around finals time. Contrary to popular belief, upperclassmen are not drinking away the pain of their below-average B-pluses. Nor are they pre-gaming finals. They are actually preparing for Yardfest. The student body, you see, undergoes months of preparation in order to ensure that Yardfest is more tolerable, and has greater attendance, than an Occupy Harvard protest. Ever heard of Tyga? Didn’t think so.

For the more sober-minded among us, another winning strategy involves purposely failing the final exam. As long as everyone in the class agrees to do so, the professor has no choice but to adjust the curve accordingly. And the most common grade is supposed to be an A, right? This collective test-failing strategy works particularly well for those taking Econometrics and Constitutional Law. I say this not because I am taking these classes, but rather because I am trying to selflessly impart the most important strategies to those who have yet to experience finals here at Harvard.

But if you do choose to study, remember that Netflix is not your best friend—HBO GO is. And Harvard, in its beneficence, has extended to you free access to this marvelous service. (We also have subscriptions to a service called Philo, formerly Tivli, which, as far as I can tell, is the name of a Teletubbies spinoff.) Spend the two days preceding every exam watching “Boardwalk Empire,” decompressing, and relaxing before the big day. This, too, applies most specifically to those in Econometrics and Con Law. For those worried that HBO GO will drain too much time and productivity, fret not! Harvard has thought of this as well and discontinues the service during school breaks.

Inevitably, though, despite all of this excellent advice and an immense amount of preparation, you will likely walk into an exam and have absolutely no idea how to open that damned bottle of 5-Hour Energy. It says twist the cap, but isn’t that the same thing as twisting the bottle and holding the cap in place? I mean, is there even liquid inside the bottle? Maybe Schrodinger’s cat is hiding in there. And maybe not. But you’ve definitely studied too much for your philosophy final, which wouldn’t exactly be a problem except this is econometrics, and you still don’t know what heteroskedasticity is.

Time to pre-game Yardfest.

Jacob R. Drucker ’15, a Crimson editorial writer, is an economics concentrator in Mather House.