I am now a senior at Grand Valley and, as a result, fancy myself a veteran of exam week. At least seven times I’ve gone through the exam gauntlet and have always survived, bloody but victorious. Through it all, I’ve come to realize one truth: the process of preparing for exams and enduring exam week cannot be systematized. The simple fact is that exam week is just too inscrutable: often hateful when you believe you’re well prepared for it, yet sometimes forgiving even when you haven’t studied, and all the while mentally exhausting.

Still, I can say with some certainty that going into exam week with the correct mindset can make all the difference. By observing some reasonably effective students and reflecting on my own travails, I’ve developed some tentative rules for how to survive exam week. They are as follows:

1) When studying, go to a public place.

I know many people study best in private. If you’re one of them, fair enough. However, I do think that studying around others has some notable benefits. For one, the sight of others working will inspire you to work. Indeed, there are few things more helpful during exam week than the feeling of solidarity—even if you’re not working on a group project, toiling with or around others will ensure that you remain productive and in good spirits. In addition, working around other students during exam week will bring you quickly to a single realization: you’re not as far gone or hopeless as you thought. Put otherwise, it is comforting to see that everyone is just as behind as you. By contrast, nothing leads to exam-week despondency like feeling that you’re the only one this behind, that the work is too much, that you simply can’t do it, and that you might as well give up. This brand of defeatism is especially harmful when you’re alone in your room with Netflix on an open tab; but, if you’re around other students who have to stay up half the night to study, their mere presence will be enough to keep you going.

2) Don’t sweat the 3 am existential crisis

If you do actually succumb to exam-week despair, take warning: the 3 am existential crisis, during which you doubt your ability to pass any of your classes and decide, instead, to return to your parents’ basement, can be lethal to exam prep. However, the comforting news is this: everyone goes through it. Sincerely, I have not met a single student who has made it through all four or five years of undergrad without some late-night breakdown. The sooner you come to this realization, the sooner your anxiety will be alleviated and you can get back to work.

3) Trust your inner football coach

One of the things I find lacking in higher education is an emphasis on brute discipline. Especially when writing papers or studying for exams, sometimes you just need a kick in the pants to produce quality work. So, to make up for the absence of Discipline 101 in our curriculum, I channel my inner football coach. In fact, during exam week, I become a bona-fide head coach: deadlines become endzones, one more paragraph is one more sprint. To supplement this approach, I fast-forward my copy of Remember the Titans to one of Coach Boone’s famous speeches, or I watch half an episode of Friday Night Lights. Truly, when struggling on a paper, I find Coach Taylor’s “clear eyes, full hearts” line quite inspiring. Think I’m the only dork in college who does this? Check out “Academic Coach Taylor” on Tumblr.

These “rules” aside, one thing is clear: you have to get through exam week somehow; but of course, so does everyone else.