Finals week is around the corner, and many students are starting to feel stressed, overwhelmed and under pressure from their schoolwork. 

To help students take a step back and reset, Campus Recreation and Wellness hosted RESET: Mind Before Finals, an event designed to give students a mental break and provide tools to manage academic stress. 

The event featured a variety of crafts and activities intended to help students slow down, refocus and mentally prepare for the busy week of final exams.

Bryslin Oden, an event supervisor, explained how events like RESET are designed to support students’ mental health. 

“We wanted students to be able to come in and enjoy a space where art and crafts help release stress and also help them feel productive,” Oden said. “I hope that when they leave, they feel rejuvenated, recharged, and eager to keep learning, since they’ve taken that time for themselves.”

Students from all majors and classifications were invited to participate in the creative activities offered at the Ronnie Williams Student Center. 

Attendees enjoyed coffee, hot cocoa and music while learning how to create their own Reset Journals using old magazines and simple reflections. 

The room had multiple tables covered in colored pencils, markers, glue sticks, stickers, scissors, and stacks of magazines for students to cut and paste into their journals. 

Freshman Emily Pence said that she attended because she wanted a calm space to escape the stress of finals. 

“This is an activity where I can sit back and change my mindset about how stressed and scared I am,” Pence said. “It helps me become calmer and realize that everything is going to be fine and work out.”

First-year students often face challenges during their first finals week. 

Still, events like this one also invited upperclassmen to take a moment for themselves and recharge during one of their final stretches of the semester. 

Senior Savannah Clark, a health promotion major, explained how events like RESET are important as the semester gets constantly agitated. 

“The final part of the semester can get hectic,” Clark said. “It’s good for events and students to come and just reset, sit down, take their mind off things, do something fun that brings them peace. It’s very relaxing, just a reset before finals.”

As the semester gets to its busiest point, RESET offered students a space to slow down, whether they needed a quiet moment or a creative break to leave behind overthinking and heavy workloads. 

The main goal of the crafts and artistic activities was to help students let go of the anxious environment of the approaching finals. 

Campus Recreation and Wellness constantly offers mental and physical health activities that give students practical tools to manage stress and academic pressures. 

These initiatives within the organization aim to help students understand how creative and relaxing activities can influence their health, while providing opportunities to pause, reflect and recharge. 

RESET: Mind Before Finals was one of the multiple activities designed to support student well-being during stressful weeks, offering students a chance to take a break, engage in creative activities, and approach finals with a clearer, more focused mindset.