Prelim Playlist

Now that it’s prelim season (and will be until finals roll around), Cornell students look more stressed than ever. You can see the pressure on their faces in libraries and cafes all over campus as they furiously throw back coffee after coffee and exhaust packs of sticky notes in their textbooks. We are now a community of people on edge, hovering around the next available seat, shooting death glares at those who dare plug their MacBook in to the last available outlet.

With all the work we have to complete, alleviating stress becomes hard. Personally, I unwind with music and tailor playlists that I feel will help my productivity. For example, when I can’t even bring myself to look at an assignment, I turn on a few songs to pump myself up. A recent favorite has been the song “Big Bank Hank” by Blue Scholars, a laid-back hip hop track that appropriately asks, “Whatcha gonna do today?” The song is seriously groove-inducing, and for me, perfect for easing my way into long study sessions.

When I study, however, I need something a bit more low-key. Usually, my artists of choice are Ella Fitzgerald, a classic, and Joanna Newsom, a folkie harpist oddity. Other times, when I really need to buckle down and blast through a paper, I prefer classical. I think it works, too; one night, after a long battle with writer’s block, I listened to Mozart and completed two pages in half and hour. Maybe I just needed a good motivator.

I recommend checking out the website 8tracks.com, a website similar to Pandora, for more ideas. The site features playlists created by its users, and you can find almost anything. Just type “homework” into the search bar, and sample playlists such as “Music to do Homework To,” “Homework Jazz,” “The Perfect Homework Music for Hip-Hop Lovers,” including others.

When you finally close the books and can study no more, I also suggest to look up “End of The Week,” a chill track by Dean and Ravo that pretty much describes every college student’s life. We all need a little relaxation during this stressful stretch of time, no matter the form.