The Renegade

Guide On How To Survive Finals

Week

The Renegade Fall 2013, Issue 01

The RenegadeEditor in Chief – Christin MillerAssistant Editors – Natasha Jones, Timothy WyattCreative Director – Jannica Brady

Contributing Writers – Kelly Allen, Jannica Brady, Abbey Cherry, Ashley Lingard, Kasey Malone, Shelby Muff Andres Pedraza, Ryan Poynter, Ca-leb Vander Ark, Whitley West, Solomon Whitaker, Alex Williams, Matthew Williams

Contributing Photographers – Chloe Gu, Erin McMullen, Kristina Smith, Abbey Cherry

Faculty Adviser – Jeremiah Massengale

The Renegade is published quarterly in partnership with The Patriot Newspaper at the University of the Cumberlands.

Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of The Renegade, advertisers, UC staff, faculty, administration, alumni, or trustees. Copyright 2013, all rights reserved.

To subscribe to The RenegadePhone: 606-539-4172Email: [email protected]: 1 year (4 issues) U.S. $15

Postmaster: Send address changes to The Patriot, University of the Cumberlands,7609 College Station Drive, Williamsburg, KY 40769.

2 The Renegade ~ April 2013

Staff Credits

April 2013 ~ The Renegade 3

Table of Contents

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Photo Spread: Life around UC

How Students Can Survive Finals Week: A Guide to Help Reduce the Stress of Finals Week.

An Introverts Attempt at Becoming an Extrovert:One Students Journey to be More Social.


Chloe G

u


Kristina Sm

ith

Kristina Sm

ith

Chloe GuAbbey Cherry

Howstu-

dents can

survive finalsKayla Hedman

Over the course of finals week students usually have two goals: (1) Do well on exams and (2) keep stress to a minimum. Students are usually seen dou-ble-fisting caffeinated beverages, munching on sugary snacks, shuf-fling around papers and books to find a place to lay their head, and it’s not uncommon to sleep as much in a week as one would in a single night. Dr. Michael Colegrove, vice pres-ident of Student Services, said: “Staying stress-free is important, but stress is not inherently bad for students. There is an ideal level of stress for each one of us, which that helps motivate us to do our best. When we are functioning at that ideal level, we are sufficiently pushed to do our best, yet not paralyzed by the re-sults of excessive stress. The goal is to find the ideal stress level and then try to stay there.” External stress emerges because studying should be one’s top priority and unfortunately, no young adult likes to admit that their social life has to be set aside for a bit, he said.“In order to perform best on final exams, one must remember the basics: stay active, get plenty of rest, eat a good breakfast, all those healthy study-tips that stu-dents have been told since grade school. In addition to that, one must find time to escape studying and take time for themselves.” From a student perspective, surviving the gauntlet of oral pre-sentations, exams, essay writing, and projects, in the weeks ahead, here are some techniques UC students suggest will successfully minimize stress and maximize efficiency. Take advantage of on campus programming during and prior to finals week Many colleges help their students to de-stress during finals week by

offering school-sponsored events. Check into what UC offers; The Campus Activity Board and the Student Government Association offer special student events, and free midnight snacks in the dining hall. Area churches like Main Street Baptist Church offer free coffee and organized study breaks.

Select a good study spaceDo not just start studying any-where. Find a quiet, orderly place. Unfortunately, your dorm room is probably a bad place to study. With all the familiar objects around and your roommates hanging out, it would be too easy to get distracted. A peaceful envi-ronment will be an immeasurable help to your concentration.

Work out Short exercise breaks can help relieve stress, socialize, and burn off the extra sugary calories you may consume. Take a jog down-town, ride your bike to campus, do yoga, take a kickboxing class, play pick-up basketball, or go to the wellness center and get your fitness on. Exercise helps you focus, it gives you additional energy, and it releases endor-phins to make you feel better. In order to make deadlines, stick to 30 minutes of exercise a day. If you must, bring a book to study while you’re on the exercise bike or treadmill.If exercising is not your thing, progressive muscle relaxation is a technique many people find help-ful. Systematically go through the major muscle groups of your body, tightening, holding and then relaxing each group. Start at the top of your body and move down (face; neck/upper back/shoulders; arms; abdominals; upper legs; lower legs; feet/toes).

Eat healthy Often, students eat even more

unhealthily during finals week than they do the rest of the semester. With a time crunch, they go for quick, tasty, on-the-go foods and mindlessly much away until they are left with an empty package. This is a big mistake. Junk food gives you instant energy or a sugar high, but it affects your concentration and memory and will end in a food coma or sugar crash. Eating healthy food will energize you and increase your concentration and retention. Fruits and veg-etables are best; they have the required vitamins and nutrients to prevent sickness and give you energy. Simply eating a healthy diet is an easy way to help man-age stress and get good grades during your finals.

Stay hydrated Your brain works best when it’s hydrated. Dehydration causes fatigue and headaches, which will distract you from your work. Caffeine dehydrates you more, so for every coffee you have, have a glass of water. Your body and mind will thank you.

Breathe When you are in those moments when your stress level is climb-ing, take a deep breath for four counts, hold it for four counts, and exhale for four counts. Try this a few times. You may be shocked at how much better you feel.Treat yourself to lunch before your final Get away from campus and get your mind off of studying if you have a spark of confidence. Check out local restaurants like El Dorado’s, the Root Beer Stand, and Milly’s On Main for some tasty, brain food.

Catch some ZZZ’s Everyone has different sleep habits, but it is never healthy


unhealthily during finals week than they do the rest of the semester. With a time crunch, they go for quick, tasty, on-the-go foods and mindlessly much away until they are left with an empty package. This is a big mistake. Junk food gives you instant energy or a sugar high, but it affects your concentration and memory and will end in a food coma or sugar crash. Eating healthy food will energize you and increase your concentration and retention. Fruits and veg-etables are best; they have the required vitamins and nutrients to prevent sickness and give you energy. Simply eating a healthy diet is an easy way to help man-age stress and get good grades during your finals.

Stay hydrated Your brain works best when it’s hydrated. Dehydration causes fatigue and headaches, which will distract you from your work. Caffeine dehydrates you more, so for every coffee you have, have a glass of water. Your body and mind will thank you.

Breathe When you are in those moments when your stress level is climb-ing, take a deep breath for four counts, hold it for four counts, and exhale for four counts. Try this a few times. You may be shocked at how much better you feel.Treat yourself to lunch before your final Get away from campus and get your mind off of studying if you have a spark of confidence. Check out local restaurants like El Dorado’s, the Root Beer Stand, and Milly’s On Main for some tasty, brain food.

Catch some ZZZ’s Everyone has different sleep habits, but it is never healthy


to pull an all-nighter. Make sure to get the sleep your body needs. Sleep will improve the quality and retention of studying, even though you may have less study time. Less is more.

Take breaks Studying non-stop is actually not helpful. Af-ter a long period of studying, your concen-tration will be broken, and the material that you are trying to learn will not be retained well. Studies show in order to really grasp

information, the brain needs time to absorb what it has learned. You should use short

breaks to exercise, eat, rest, talk to friends, watch TV, go outside, or do some other

activity that takes your mind off the study material. The most important thing is that you do something for yourself and reward

yourself for getting some work done.

P&P: Prioritize & plan “Failing to plan is planning to fail.” If you start studying without a plan, you are likely to focus on the wrong material or get dis-tracted. Plan how to allocate your time and what to study.

Ask for help Many students are afraid to ask for help. If you do not understand what to do or study,

ask someone. You could speak to your pro-fessor during office hours, or talk to your friends and classmates. You are all working together and in the same boat. The profes-sor wants to see you succeed and so do your

friends; they most likely will be glad to help.

Call friends Talking with a trusted friend or family mem-ber about how you are feeling helps because most of them have been there, done that or are in the same boat as you. Talking things out can have the immediate effect of reducing stress levels. Sharing with someone else helps us feel we aren’t alone which can be so helpful. Write research papers and make projects early Most of the time, profes-

sors give plenty of advance notice before a final paper or project is due. Don’t procras-tinate on these when you know you’ll need to study during finals week.

Use study groupsLearn the material by yourself, and review it by explaining the subject to the study group. With the right group of people, you can learn more about the topic then you could by yourself. Different perspectives and observations are good to be exposed to. Choose your study group wisely.

Double-check your exam times When you are taking many exams in the same week, it is easy to confuse the times. Write the time on a sticky note and put it on your books, desk, or computer. Missing an exam is the easiest way to fail.

What are you telling yourself ? Lots of stress is about our perceptions and the messages we are giving ourselves. If you are telling yourself that only an “A” will do, when you know there is no chance of such

a high grade, you may be setting yourself up for excessive stress that gets in the way. Check out your perceptions and replace irrational expectations with a more rational one.

Stop wasting time College students always procrastinate by browsing on Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, and other social media and pop culture websites. It’s bound to happen, but if you turn off your Internet connection when it’s not needed to study, you can avoid the distraction.

It’s Nice to Greet You: An

Introvert’s Attempt

at Being an

ExtrovertRyan Poynter

According to the United States Census Bureau, the current approximate population of the world is about 7,053,185,000 people. Those people, as diverse as they may be in the areas of age, race, gender, sexual orientation, cultural tradition, and economic status, can be easily divided into two different groups – group A (extraoverts) and group B (intro-verts). How do you determine who belongs in which group? Read the first sentence of this paragraph out loud; if any person within earshot tries to interrupt you, claims to have met a third of that 7 billion, or gets visibly upset after realizing she has a while to go before “completing” Face-book, then, well – they belong in group A. For those that don’t respond, chances are they belong to group B. One of the best ways to tell is to check for the sweating; it’s hard to avoid seven billion of anything for very long, and trying to do it for an entire lifetime has a tendency to make a person anxious. Other candidates for group B include: The girl awkwardly staring at the ceiling or tying her shoes for several minutes at a time, anyone who has more than three versions of Angry Birds on his/her cell phone, and the guy who wouldn’t come out of his room because he’s “not feeling well today.” These are all things that I do. For a while now, I’ve aligned myself with those in group B, though I’ve never been entirely confident in my choice (confi-dence is an issue for people in this group). Group B is most comfortable for me – and I’ll ad-mit that there’s a lot for me to be annoyed by from the outspoken group A (loud voices, loud music – lots of loud things) – but I’d be lying if I said there was nothing alluring about commanding the complete attention of others.

And, as is true for most things (or at least most things of any value), you must first give your attention if you want to receive the atten-tion of anyone. So I came up with an idea – for three days, I de-cided to become an extrovert by offering my attention to every sin-gle person that I saw. Yes, every single one. This, I hoped, would allow me to see from the eyes of a group A card-holder by both being outspoken and attracting the attention of plenty of people

everywhere I went. Ideally, this experiment would provide for me a new perspective on my current surroundings and some interest-ing insight into the lifestyle of someone (or a group of people) very different from me. Anything else would be gravy. There were some rules involved. I live on a college cam-pus, and I didn’t want to annoy or offend anyone I’m going to have to see for the rest of my un-dergraduate career. At the same time, controlling an experiment like this really limits its effective-ness, and, as a result, whatever outcome it yields. Knowing this, I came up with three simple rules:

1. If any person came within ten feet of me, I had to ac-knowledge them somehow. This usually meant saying hi, waving, or both. Eye contact was a bonus, but not always necessary.

2. If I knew someone’s name, I had to say it when I addressed them. This allowed for more personalization in my greetings and gave the illusion that I was genuinely interested in speaking to them at that time and not just fulfilling the re-quirements of this experiment. It wasn’t always one or the other.

3. If someone started a conversation with me, I had to see it to its completion. I could not walk away until they had said what they needed to say. I chose to do this because I wanted to know how it felt to ask for and to hold someone’s attention; to dismiss it so quickly after obtain-ing it would be unfair to them, to me, and to the experiment.These rules, however, required amendments. To avoid redundan-cy and to remain inconspicuous, I chose to make two exceptions to these rules:

1. If I approach a group, I can address them all together. This way, I’m not saying hi to ev-ery person in a group as they try to ignore me interrupting their conversation. My go-to here was, “Hey guys.”

2. If I’m in the cafeteria or any other highly crowded area, I could limit myself to acknowl-edging only those people who make direct eye contact with me. Otherwise, I’d have to make a visit to each table in the cafeteria and I’d never get to eat anything.This task proved harder than I ex-pected. My three days were filled with plenty of failures and, even then, I estimated the number of people I spoke to at somewhere around three hundred – about a hundred people a day.Day one was spent in much the same way I’d spend any other day going from place to place – my hands were pocketed, my head

“I learned quickly that get-ting this experiment to work the way I wanted it to would mean more than simply say-ing hi to each person I passed by on my way to class or to lunch; I’d have to completely change my approach.”

8 The Renegade ~ 2013

was down, and I walked at a pace that most would consider a slow jog. The only differ-ence is that, for every three or four steps, I’d raise my head up, say hello to someone, and then drop it right back down.I tackled that day like an ugly Halloween decoration that only activates when some-one gets close enough to trigger its motion sensor – my actions were unexpected and creepy to the people around me. This showed in the responses that I got from others; most of the time I didn’t even get a response, and when I did, it was just as un-enthused as my initial greeting. The result I had achieved was a mutual disappointment between my new acquaintance and me – the opposite of what I had intended when I started the experiment.I learned quickly that getting this experi-ment to work the way I wanted it to would mean more than simply saying hi to each person I passed by on my way to class or to lunch; I’d have to completely change my approach. In the same way that paint-ing racing stripes on a Kia doesn’t make it Nascar-worthy, teaching the group B, quiet, look-down-at-the-pavement me to wave at a few people I’ve never met doesn’t make me outgoing. It makes me a faker. Even the people I’d never spoken to before could tell that.Days two and three weren’t much of an improvement. I’d decided by those days to make eye contact with people a few paces and smile before I said hello, hoping to let them see that I was more open to conversa-tion and more interested in who they were and what they were doing. This concept was somewhat new to me, and I had some interesting results. I must’ve forgotten how uncomfortable it is for most people to hold the stare of a stranger for any more than a brief moment – most of the time when I looked up and into the eyes of someone I planned to greet, they’d look away – often down – and ignore me entirely. There were even a few times I forgot to smile as I approached someone, so in-stead of looking friendly and open as I had intended, the eye contact just made me look unapproachable and extremely pissed off. Oops. Three days was enough to make me confident in saying that I belong in group B. In 72 hours, I had spoken to over 300

people. That’s probably about 15 times the number of people I usually speak to in that amount of time. It was mostly awkward and uncomfortable and I finished my last day feeling like I hadn’t accomplished much at all in the way of progress. But then I

thought of something: It’s interesting to try to estimate the amount of influence I might have had on those individuals that I greet-ed. Most I doubt will even remember me. The ones that do will likely not remember much positive. The creepy smile and stare, perhaps. But even so, the opportunity for influence was outstanding. The opportunity to meet new people, or to lighten some-one’s load by chatting with them for only a few moments. The opportunity to allow a stranger’s grin give you one of your own, when all you wanted was to create a situa-tion uncomfortable enough for both parties to be written about. These are all opportuni-ties that I discovered because I chose to look for them, and they’re all opportunities that I had missed before when I chose not to. I won’t always take these opportunities, but

I’ll be glad for them when I do, and I think realizing that means that my experiment saw at least some success. That, I suppose, is something to keep my head up about.


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