Top 10 signs it’s Finals Week at ISU

  • Author By Ryan Denham
  • December 10, 2012

Welcome to the storm before the calm.

It’s Finals Week here at Illinois State, a highly caffeinated academic blitz that began today and ends Friday with winter break. To mark the timeless occasion, here’s our Top 10 Signs That It’s Finals Week at ISU.

Many thanks to our contributors across campus for helping STATEside compile this compendium. Good luck, students!

1. CLUB MILNER

Club Milner is a 10-minute dance party that the Student Government Association organizes outside the library. This year’s bash was Sunday. The SGA teamed up with City Dance’s Rep The Midwest campaign for a DJ, break dancers and a professional videographer.


 
 

2. TAKEOUT AT MILNER

The one week a year it’s not weird to order a pizza or Jimmy Johns and get it delivered to Milner.

Pizza boxes outside Milner

 

3. GET ENERGIZED

Recycling bins in the creepily quiet residence halls are packed with empty energy drink containers.

Energy drinks in recycling bins

4. LINE UP

You haven’t done Finals Week until you’ve waited in line at Einstein Bros. Bagels during Finals Week.

Line at Einstein Bros. at Bone

5. CHOW DOWN

In case it comes up on your math final, it takes 64 gallons of coffee, 48 gallons of hot chocolate, and 150 dozen donuts (1,800 donuts!) to feed students at Milner’s three-day Study Breaks chowdown.

Full boxes of donuts

6. LATE-NIGHT DINING

College means never turning down a free meal, even when it’s a hot breakfast at 8 o’clock at night. Diversity Advocacy’s free Late Night Breakfast from 8-10 p.m. Monday in the Student Services Building (SSB), Room 375. Diversity Advocacy is also offering Study Jams, from 5 p.m. to midnight, Monday through Wednesday, in the SSB, rooms 304, 314, 375, 376 and 387.

Late-night breakfast at SSB

7. BOOK BUYBACK

Waiting in line to sell back your textbooks before you wait in line at the gas station on Main Street before you hop on I-55 headed for home for winter break. Oh, traditions.

College textbooks

8. THE WALKING DEAD

Sleep definitely suffers at finals time and students tend to look like zombies. (The folks at Health Promotion and Wellness have a few tips to get some Z’s, even during finals.)

Student zombie needs sleep

9. PEANUT BUTTER BAR

Campus Dining’s really, really messy Peanut Butter Bar is a once-a-semester tradition. It’s got everything you could ever conceivably want to make a Finals Week peanut butter sandwich—jelly, marshmallow fluff, chocolate, bananas, strawberries, Red Bull. OK, that last one was a lie. (Available at Linkins and Watterson dining centers on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights, 10 p.m. to midnight.)

Peanut Butter Bar at Linkins

10. QUIET HALLS

Just how quiet are the residence halls during finals? “It’s kind of like a radio on the fritz in the halls,” says one Housing staffer. “Generally the volume feels like it has been turned way down but with little bursts of activity, when pockets of people are done and celebrating.”

Quiet dorms

Ryan Denham can be reached at rmdenha@ilstu.edu.