Yoyo Zhang, a second-year economics and computer science major at UChicago, documents finals week juggling four exams, a project, a paper, and a group presentation while surviving on minimal sleep and erratic meals. She reviews 200 slides, pulls all-nighters, and deals with a broken Apple Pencil and scarce library space before packing up her dorm and heading home.
Chapters
Hello there! It's Tuesday of finals week and I am not doing well. Basically, the next 3 days are going to be the hardest days of my life, and I wanted to show you what it's like taking finals at the University of Chicago. For context, I'm a second year and I'm double majoring in econ and computer science. This quarter is the worst because it's my first quarter of all major classes because I just finished all my core requirements, so it's quite intense. I have a project and a paper due tonight, a presentation tomorrow, one exam on Thursday, and two exams on Friday. I hate when it's so nice out and I have to go inside and study. I think that's the worst thing about spring quarter is that everyone else is already back home, and since we get out so late, I'm already in summer mode, man. How am I supposed to log in when it's like picnic weather? It's literally beach weather right now, and you don't get that a lot in Chicago. So update, this is really bad. I was gonna go to the library and log in and then go to the gym, But I realized that I had this one algorithm that was running and it's still not done. And so I had to basically be with my laptop the whole time until it's over, or else I'm worried the data is not going to save and all my work is going to be gone. I need this to be done. I need to go to the gym. I need to actually like start studying. I literally haven't done anything today. It's like 4 PM. Oh, I just It's 12 AM and we just submitted our paper and presentation, which is not ideal because this should not have taken this long at all. I was planning on finishing this this afternoon so I could go to the gym. And yeah, I'm like really worried because I have not lifted in 2 days. I ran yesterday, I did not do any exercise at all today. And tomorrow I'm gonna have even less time because I'll be cramming for the next 3 exams. I have not eaten like normal food, which just makes everything worse, you know? I'm just like, I need to be active. I need to be like lifting and like moving. Let me show you my dinner. This is it. Good morning, or should I say good afternoon because it's 2 PM and I just got up and showered because I slept at 5 AM last night, which is a horrible decision. And now I'm going to my final presentation with my group for my data class, and then I have to go to gym and then start cramming for my exam tomorrow and Friday. Very exciting day ahead. I just finished my presentation and I decided to reward myself with a protein matcha. This is my breakfast technically, and now I'm going to gym, which I'm really excited. And what I'm not excited about is the studying after, but we'll think about it later. Update, I just got back in my room and it's currently 12:37 AM. I finished reviewing about half of the class for tomorrow's exam. So we clearly have a long way to go, but the good thing is I'm feeling locked in right now, and I think I can do a few more chapters, um, before we go to bed. But I also have to do a little bit for Friday's exams so that I will have enough time to go through all the materials for that. So we're really on a time crunch here, but Yeah, we're locked in, we're locked in. I have to finish making a cheat sheet. It's currently 4:46 AM. I have not finished going over the 200 slides, and honestly, at this point, my brain is not working anymore. I just want to watch cat videos, which is what I did last night instead of going to bed. So this is telling me that I should probably go to bed instead of wasting time, but I'm also scared to go to bed because I haven't gone through all the material yet, and I'm just realizing how slow I am when reviewing stuff, so that's a bit of an issue. At this point, I think I have 60% of the material down, which means I'll probably pass, which is good, but like, I'm trying to keep my GPA high, so. Good morning! Well, it's technically afternoon. Already. I slept for around 6 hours and we have about 7 hours left to study before tonight's exam, and that's not counting eating or going to the bathroom. And I'm obviously not going to the gym today, which I honestly was planning on too. I don't know what I was thinking, but yeah, this week's activity level is not ideal. But the weather today is really nice and I was just looking out my window and someone's literally tanning on the grass right now. That will be me in 48 hours. But for now, we have to actually lock in. I was actually so stressed in my sleep. I was having nervous breakdowns because I was worried that I was not going to have enough time to study when I was trying to go to bed. And I was thinking about my exams tomorrow and how I'm probably going to pull an all-nighter tonight because my exam tonight ends at 10:30 and I won't be able to study for tomorrow's exam before that. So yeah, it's a tough one, but we're not gonna back down from a challenge, okay? We got this, we got this, we got this. I have acquired caffeine, and now I'm gonna go lock myself in the library for the next foreseeable future. We have officially 1 hour left until the exam, and I'm not ready at all, but It'll be over very soon, and then on to the next one tonight. We're on our way to the exam. So good. I'm very good. Feeling like I'm accepting my fate, but it should be fine. I'm back in my room. I did not enjoy that at all, but I'm glad that it's over. I'm just hoping that the curve would be good, but honestly, at this point, I'm gonna accept my fate. It honestly wasn't that hard objectively, but I just did not spend enough time studying. And right now I still have 2 left. It's about 11 PM right now, and I have one exam tomorrow at 10:30 and another one at 3 PM, and after that I'll be done completely. But for now, I'm going to try to study as much as possible and get a little bit of sleep before tomorrow morning. My Apple Pencil decided to break, so I can't use my iPad to write anymore, which is really annoying because I had a lot of econ notes on my iPad. I have to like basically start over on paper with all of these to copy down the questions. But at this point, I'm just going to do what I can and be super, super efficient. Because we got this. We got this. We got this. Hello! It's 7 AM. You might think, why am I lying on the floor? And that's because I did not sleep. And I just took a nap on the floor because I'm— I was scared that I wasn't gonna get up if I actually fall asleep. And honestly, I didn't really fall asleep either, but I was resting my eyes. We have 3.5 hours left until the exam, so I think I'm gonna get up in maybe 20 minutes. Do some more problems, go to the library. I think the library opens at 8, and then I'll head over. It's very bright in my room. The next time I step back into this room, everything is going to be over. I am just so excited. Please ignore my bed. I'm usually not this messy. I hate how nice it is today. I think everyone has literally left campus, and I'm like the only person with 2 exams left on Friday. There's no one in the library, and that's a first at UChicago. I genuinely don't know what to do. This marker is not working, and I looked through every single room on this floor and there's not a single marker. It's time. I'm so not ready, but I'm excited to get this over with. I'm literally so dead. Oh my God, I think that took everything out of me. I'm having the worst stomachache in my life as well, probably because I have not eaten any real food in the past. 24 hours, and it started hurting right in the middle of the exam. And it always happens, like every single final season I always get stomach issues. And now I just have one more to go in 2.5 hours. I think I might lowkey need to take a nap for that one. Here are my two cheat sheets that I finally finished making for the exam. I can't believe I'm still standing. One more, here we go. It's supposed to be 3 hours long, but I'm gonna try to finish early. I'm done! I'm actually so dead right now. I can't wait to lie down. I just can't comprehend anything at the moment. Hello, it's currently Friday night. I took a fat nap this afternoon, but I had to get up and pack my stuff because we're getting kicked out tomorrow, so I used to have everything in boxes, which I'm really far from that right now. My room is actually a mess, like there's nowhere for me to stand, so I'm not going to show you that. But I was going through all my papers from this year. These are all of the scratch paper and practice problems I've done this year. It's quite thick and it's actually making me really emotional because I never know what to do with them because like you can see it's like all my handwriting like all of this are hours and hours of effort that I put in to school and it's a lot of paper. I would say I have a lot more notes on my iPad so I am really trying to save paper but sometimes you got to put pen to paper. And this whole stack is from this year, and I wish there's like a way to keep them, but it's honestly like really annoying to try to save space in the boxes, which I already don't have enough space. But like, look at, look at me analyzing financial statements. Like, I'm going to miss doing this. I'm going to miss looking through my balance sheets. Maybe I'll like recycle these. Hello, it's editor Yoyo Zhang. I am finally back home. I'm so happy to be back home because even editing that gave me PTSD. I do not want to relive that again, but I hope you enjoyed watching it. If you're deciding between colleges right now, just know that UChicago is an amazing school and you will never go wrong choosing it. I can't recommend it enough. I love You Chicago! But just be warned about the finals there. And if you're curious about the results, stay tuned. I'll be posting a lot more interesting content on my channel for the rest of the summer, so I hope you'll stick around. And thanks for watching. Bye!
