As any college student can tell you, the short span of time in between Thanksgiving and winter break is incredibly busy, hectic, and stressful. All of your classes are trying to fit in those last few lessons and assignments before final exams. You need to finalize your schedule for the winter. Summer internship applications deadlines are approaching. Whether you’re working to recover from a rough midterm season or hoping to maintain your solid GPA through the end of the semester, the struggle of getting through these next few weeks is very, very real.
I’m definitely feeling the full force of finals week looming in the distance, but in times of stress, I have two tools at my disposal: writing and the Great British Baking Show.
The calming qualities of writing are pretty straightforward and can take a few forms. For one, writing is a creative break from the onslaught of academic pressures. Whether that means journaling or a non-academic creative project, finding as few as twenty minutes to just write for the sake of writing is an effective de-stressor if you’re like me and the majority of your workload in the homestretch of the semester is STEM-heavy.
If you can’t bear the idea of taking twenty minutes out of your very busy study-schedule, or you’re already up to your ears in writing assignments, I propose a short, practical, and productive alternative: a good old-fashioned to-do list. This sounds simple, and it is. Especially if you’re feeling overwhelmed, I have found that making a tidy little list is both soothing and time-efficient. You get a second to prioritize your tasks, write them out neatly, and when you finish one, you get to cross it off your list. For both productivity and keeping exam stress at bay, it’s a win-win.
Ok, onto the Great British Baking Show. Hear me out: the great thing about it is that each episode is modular in format, divided into three study-break sized segments – a signature, a technical, and a showstopper challenge – about 20 minutes each. There’s no overarching, complex plot to keep track of or cliff-hangers to bait you into the next episode. It’s just distracting enough to be a good break, and just simple enough that you can easily close Netflix and get back to work, right on schedule.
If that isn’t enough to convince you, then let me ask you a question: Would you rather spend your study break scrolling through Twitter, where you will be berated with clickbait and upsetting news updates that will likely only add to your stress? Or do you want to spend it in the British summer countryside, in a big white tent full of nice people who just really love to bake? Enough said.
If nothing else, the Great British Baking Show is an analogy for the end-of-semester scramble. We all came in with high hopes and the intention to do our best, yet here we are a few months later with an overbaked cake, grainy buttercream, and batter all over the floor. There’s one showstopper challenge left to redeem ourselves to the judges and live to bake another week. Three hours on the clock. On your mark. Get set. Bake.
Writer To Writer Literary Journal 