It’s that time of year again when suddenly every group project is due, every class assigns a 10-page paper, exams are nearing and the holiday season quickly advances, bringing the demands of shopping and preparing for a variety of family and social obligations. And on top of all that, it’s freezing cold and snowing, which is enough to test anyone’s holiday cheer.

This is the time of year when students and faculty alike can begin to feel overwhelmed and focus only on the key to happiness, the solution to all our problems: Dec. 17 — the end of the semester.

We deal with the same end-of-semester stresses and problems every year and yet seem to make little progress in finding an alternative method of coping or even preventing the insanity that is finals week. One option would be to take break from obsessing about the length of our to-do lists and revisit our attitudes at the beginning of the semester.

The final week of classes before exams is a good time to re-evaluate goals set earlier this school year. A reminder of what you wanted to accomplish can either be comforting if you realize you’ve already achieved it or can serve as a wake-up call to help refocus your energy as the semester draws to a close.

Get reacquainted with the student you were at the beginning of the school year – full of ambition and motivation, excited (perhaps) about your new classes and ready to take on whatever challenges Fall 2010 brought your way. Chances are somewhere during the long weeks of the semester, students lost that spark, but this final push is a good time to reignite it and finish the semester strong.

One step to accomplishing goals is to be aware of them, and it is good to remind yourself of long-term and short-term goals to ensure the end of the semester leaves you in a good position.

Whatever method you use to study or reduce stress, take a few moments in these final weeks to reflect on where you’ve come from this semester and where you’d like to be at the end of exams.

Don’t worry, we’ll all survive.