Every year, the Graduate College assembles a Finals Study Playlist to keep you rocking during your study sessions. This year we're featuring a guest contributor: Kamau Grantham, Clinical Counselor at the University of Illinois Counseling Center.
It may be hard to believe, but finals week is upon us already. Where did the semester go? (I say this every semester). For many students this can be an incredibly stressful time of the year: studying for exams, writing papers, running experiments, or preparing to present your work. While we cannot eliminate stress completely from our lives, we can create a buffer for ourselves to reduce the impact of stress. Things we can do include: prioritizing sleep/rest, spending time with healthy social supports, setting boundaries with others (that means saying “no” and feeling okay about it), and being kind and compassionate with ourselves. In addition to these activities, I also find listening to music, and even creating music, to be very relaxing. I don’t need research to tell me that listening to music improves my mood and relaxes me (but the research does support this anyway). With that said, my friends at the Graduate College have asked me, in my capacity as liaison from the Counseling Center, to create a Graduate College Finals playlist.
The playlist I have curated for you is based on music I have been listening to recently in some capacity or another. Some of these songs I enjoy listening to when reading, others while washing dishes, and some while creating. My hope, in sharing this playlist, is that you will be inspired to create your own playlist and choose songs that can help get you through final exams and beyond. I hope you enjoy these songs and maybe even discover a new favorite song or genre. Wishing you all well on exams and empowering you to create space to care for yourself.
Feel like spinning these tunes later? You can find the playlist anytime on our Graduate College Spotify page.
Kamau Grantham, Ph. D. (he/him/his) is a clinical counselor at the Counseling Center and liaison to the Graduate College. In his spare time Kamau enjoys spending time with his partner and two sons, DJing, and creating digital collages as part of the art duo BLACKMAU.
