If you feel you have college life under control by now and see a stress free uneventful rest of the semester, then you must be a freshman and have no idea what midterms are. Ask any upper classman, and they will tell you that midterms mean stress-filled days and sleepless nights. It does not have to be this way though. The answer is to give yourself a sufficient amount of studying time and generous amounts of personal time. Midterms are difficult for everybody, but no student will forget their first experience. It is easy to pick a first-year student out of a crowd by the distinguishable looks of stress and hopelessness on their faces every October when midterm season comes around.

The experience of facing midterms is difficult for anybody, but no student will ever forget his first experience of being asked to demonstrate his proficiency in four totally different subjects in one week.

First-year students have to go through a lot. By October, they have experienced the shock of receiving their first marks back. The rough reality hits that college professors are not as accommodating and liberal with grades as high school teachers, which initiates a descent into the panic mode that typically rules their life for the entire midterm period.

There are also the financial factors to be worried about. Once tuition and books are paid for, the realities of true financial standing are revealed.

Suddenly, the reality of the “poor student” becomes a real possibility as they begin to grasp the dependency they will have on loans. And to add even more worry, students need to keep their GPAs high to renew any scholarships they might have.

Over the next week the freshman class and Nicholls State as a whole will lose sleep, miss meals and sacrifice a certain amount of their mental, social and physical health. This stress usually comes as a result of one of every college student’s greatest talents-procrastination. We usually put off doing the most unpleasant of tasks, not realizing that waiting will only make the task more stressful.

We would like to offer some advice. This significant rite of passage will cost you a little bit of sanity. If it does start to overwhelm you, then take time to stop by the Counseling Center in 224 Elkins Hall, the Tutorial Learning Center at 246 Elkins Hall, Auxiliary Services in the Student Union or Peer Assistance in the Student Union.