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A Mid-Finals/Hump Day Treat

It’s already Wednesday and your outlook for the next couple of days is starting to mimic the eerily dim weather outside. But you know what Wednesday also means? That finals ARE ALMOST OVER! Soon, it’ll officially be summer and you can head home, relax, and enjoy time with family and friends. And from May 27th-30th you’ll be lucky enough to experience a marathon of 100 Disney Channel Original Movies. Remember when Troy Bolton tried to balance his love of basketball and his love of musical theater and his social life all at once??? Relatable, huh.

But we digress. Finals are tough. We read our notes over and over again and nothing sticks. We skip to the answers of our problem sets and say, “Oh, I definitely would have gotten that.” And writing papers requires more dedication than a Hungarian student at Penn rushing Owls. But in a couple of days, you’ll forget the difference between igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks. You’ll forget how to calculate the present value of a perpetuity. You’ll forget stressing about your grades and hopefully realize that finals are a tiny little microscopic thread in the XXL Snuggie that is your life.

Here’s the hard truth: You’ll do well on your exams, you’ll get that paper done, and you’ll think to yourself “why did I stress so much about that?”

Having someone tell you “your grades don’t matter” is the equivalent of your mom telling you to bring a jacket. She says it a billion times and you never believe her, yet right when you leave the house it suddenly becomes freezing outside. So, here it is again: your grades don’t matter as much as you think they do. And this time, you better believe it. The B you get on your history exam really isn’t going to change anything. So study if you want, but don’t exhaust yourself.

Freshmen: you have three more years to screw up- so start now.  Sophomores and juniors: you are smack dab in the middle of the greatest years of your life, so get out of that VP carrel and go have fun. And seniors: These are your last moments at Penn. Take a picture at the LOVE statue. Ask your crush out on a date lest he/she becomes your Sk8ter Boi. Spend more time with your friends who aren’t moving to New York with you next year.

You will without a doubt forget freaking out about your finals, but you sure as hell won’t forget the great times you had this past semester. Let’s flashback to some highlights: We gave you a roundup of Penn’s hottest TAs. Caitlyn Jenner graced our campus. Chance The Rapper not-so-graciously graced Fling. There was a Hey Day controversy that was arguably more heated than the current election. You have a couple more days to add some memories to your highlight reel of this semester. So shut that textbook/laptop and go do it.

In the words of the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, “Life is tough. But so are we.” You can do this. You got this. And if you’re still feeling stressed, here are some pictures of babies in Halloween costumes. And always remember: Even C’s get degrees. And if you can’t manage that C…well…who needs a degree when you’re schoolin’ life?

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