Five Things to Do as Soon as Exam Szn Is Over

Make the most of your newfound freedom.

Welp, it’s all coming to an end.

Months of sleeping at absurd hours (or not at all), crying bc your dad’s yelling at you trying to explain quadratic equations for the tenth time, and eating nothing but Haribo bears and chocolate, while bingeing a show to drown out your procrastination-guilt—they're over.

When you walk out of that final exam, it can feel numbing. You might not even know what to do with yourself.

Here are five things you can do as soon as the long exam szn ends (the moment you’ve been waiting for!).

1. Go to bed when you decide, don’t set an alarm, and sleep.

That guilty feeling that you must wake up before 9am every morning to get study done? We’ve been there.

Finally, you can go to sleep without the anticipation of your dreaded alarm noise.

No more anxiously counting on your fingers how many hours you’ve got before having to wake up.

Catch up on all those Zzz’s—your body needs it.

2. Remember what grass is? Take to the great outdoors.

Going to the park or beach always felt like a guilty pleasure while studying. There was a certain time limit before you had to go back and hit the books.

You can now soak up the sun and get that Vitamin D (but slip-slop-slap!) for as long as you want, and trust me, it will never feel this good.

Humans are naturally outdoors-y beings, so there’ll be nothing more restorative for you to do than just vibe with the lil bugs and plants of planet Earth.

3. You don’t need to start frantically applying for jobs or university courses.

If you’re getting home from your final exam and immediately applying for twenty jobs on SEEK, you’re just going to continue the cycle of stress.

Take some time to clear your brain completely of goals, aspirations, and the future. At least for a couple of days.

It’ll do you some good to get some perspective and enjoy the day-to-day of life.

4. Occupy yourself with an easy, laid-back routine.

While you shouldn’t jump into a super busy, jam-packed routine, you also shouldn’t become too idle.

Studying is overwhelming and it can feel like there’s constantly something you should be doing. When that feeling disappears, you can quickly feel lost.

Keeping to simple, recurring activities like doing yoga, going for walks, doing your chores, or setting a weekly movie night with friends will help to keep you occupied, but not overwhelmed.

5. Do that passion project you’ve been wanting to do.

You know that niggling urge to pick up your guitar or learn how to code that’s been there while trying to study? Yeah, it’s time to do it now.

You might have been waiting for this moment of freedom to finally do that thing you’ve been wanting to do. Now that it’s here, make sure you do it!

It can be easy to sit back, open YouTube or TikTok and just laze away your days. And that’s fine—for a little while!

If you don’t get in the swing of your hobbies and passions now, you may regret it. Go do something that makes your heart happy!

You’ll soon realise that this is a hate-love experience. You may hate the boredom and lack of things to do, but you’ll love filling that time with whatever the heck you want.

Go forth and be free!

Header Image: Bayu Jefri via Pexels