With warm weather and spring break approaching why are students feeling the pressure? It’s midterm time! Although we may be ready to go and play we find ourselves at the library with our noses crammed in a text book. It’s bad enough we have to think about projects, group meetings, sports and other activities, but now we must really put our time management skills into use to find time to study.

According to Dr. Angela Aguayo, a speech communications professor at Eastern Illinois University, “midterms are the moment of awaking.” The problem with midterms is that students do not know what they’ll be tested on and they tend not to do so well.

Students can also struggle during midterms if their teachers don’t offer to help their students prepare. Kayla Bryan a junior finance major said, “teachers don’t help because they don’t give me study guides or anything.”

Not only do students feel pressure to achieve their goal of getting good grades, professors can feel the heat as well. Each professor has their own set of goals as to how much information they want to cover before the end of the semester. Which means a midterm grade can really hurt you or help you depending on how much information you have to know. Some useful resources found on Eastern’s campus during midterms are longer library hours, 24-hour study lounges and endless supplies of caffeine and tutoring hours.

Kayla Bryan’s advice for midterms is to “just take it one day at a time. The biggest thing to worry about is procrastination.” Study groups and one- on- one teacher sessions are also helpful tools students can take advantage of.