All the moisture has been sucked from the air and with it our hope of ever seeing the sun again. Must mean it's winter in Fairbanks.

But as the calendar changes from November to December, something else begins to creep into our thoughts. This is, of course, the kernel of realization that finals, once looming on a seemingly distant horizon, are getting closer by the minute. Soon this kernel will blossom into full-blown panic whose fruit will be your fall from the tower of sanity. But in all of this one has to wonder where the semester went.

Just yesterday, the thought of finals was dwelling somewhere in between remembering to go to Anthropology 100 and taking out the six garbage bags full of Hot Pocket wrappers shoved haphazardly into the corner of your room. But unlike those bags of garbage, the threat of finals won't be carried off by scavenging rats and starving undergrads. No, finals are here to stay. So how to cope?

Many choose the tried and true "nuclear fall out" strategy, which pretty much consists of going underground (hiding under the covers) until finals blow over. The heroic students then emerge pale and shaken only to wade through the aftermath of broken pencils and burning textbooks left in the finals' wake.

This approach works great as long as you don't mind taking classes three or four times, or you think an F on your transcript stands for "Fantastic." If that's the case, passing a final is the least of your worries.

Another habit of highly effective college students is the "denial approach." This involves pumping oneself up with rhetoric including, but not limited to, "You got this dawg. No worries," "Pffft. Calc-two-schmalc-two," and my personal favorite, "How hard can a physics final be? It's not rocket science." This strategy often fails, but it's okay because, just like not preparing for the final that brought you to this point, the failed exam is often rationalized into oblivion. Besides, there was addition on that math test. Who ever saw that coming?

There are rumors of another strategy. An obscure one indeed, this strategy involves doing assignments as they are assigned in order to gain understanding of the material being presented. (I know this is a confusing concept, so please try to bear with me as I struggle through the details.)

The thought is that through the utilization of these methods one will no longer be thwarted by the prospect of tests and the final will be but a mere recap of all the knowledge that was earned throughout the semester. That is all I know, and indeed all my attempts to discover more never came to fruition. Personally I wouldn't recommend this strategy, as it is not frequented nearly as often the previous two, which of course means it cannot possibly work.

Whatever the method you choose to cope with this Final Threat, it's the right one. There's no way to mess this up. You'll do the best that you possibly can. I hope these little tidbits comforts you in four years when all you'll be tested on is whether or not you can remember to ask: "Want fries with that?"

Ben Kellie is a UAF undergraduate sophomore.