With final exams coming up, students will have the opportunity to take part in crafts, food and a viewing of a movie Thursday from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m in the University Ballroom of the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union.

“It’s Beginning to Look a lot Like Finals” will be hosted by the University Board Special Events, University Board Human Potential and Student Government groups.

The event will be wrapping up a week of rush hour events geared toward helping students remember to take breaks while studying.

Tess McArthy, the University Board human potential coordinator, said the events were designed to give students a chance to wind down, relax and take their minds off of exams.

“We’re really pushing for the idea of students to take study breaks,” McArthy said. “It’s really important to take a 20-minute study break for every two hours of work that you do, and during finals season it’s really hard for a student to focus on that. We’re just kind of pushing for that.”

The events leading up to the one on Thursday included making snow globes on Monday, cookie decorating on Tuesday and making personalized ornaments on Wednesday.

McArthy also said another attraction for students would be the food.

“We’re going to have a ton of free food for students,” McArthy said. “(We will have) a lot of comfort food that you can normally get at home. We’re going to have like mac and cheese and chicken and just a lot of food that students can enjoy and kind of take their mind off (finals).”

The event will also include several crafts and activities for students.

“We have ‘Make Your Own Zen Garden,’ which is super cool,” McArthy said. “It’s a specialty system that the Japanese use where they rake sand in different patterns and directions to kind of de-stress.”

Other crafts available at the event will include stress balls and slime.

Zoey White, the chair of Student Government Academic Affairs, suggested making the slime.

“I did talk to some of the students on campus,” White said. “They really liked the idea of slime over some other ideas that I had thought of.”

Students will also have the opportunity to relax and watch a movie.

“We’re going to show the movie ‘Elf’ and sit down, lay on beanbags and have a good time,” McArthy said.

White said she is most looking forward to making slime at the event, while McArthy said she is most looking forward to the food.

For students going into finals, McArthy had some words of advice.

“Make sure to keep your head on your shoulders,” McArthy said. “Start studying early. Make a study schedule. Don’t overwhelm yourself. Don’t try to study everything in one night. Take study breaks.”

As a freshman, White said she has not taken college finals yet but is quite nervous.

“I started studying about a week ago,” White said. “I take certain nights to study for stuff, no distractions.

To come up with ideas for the activities, McArthy said the University Board featured a new school at their meeting each week.

“We look at other schools, whether it’s in the state or in the country, and what their programming boards do,” McArthy said. “A lot of schools do some really cool stuff, and it’s always interesting to see what they do in comparison to us. A school we looked at a couple weeks ago did a

Pinterest party … where they just did a bunch of different crafts and activities from Pinterest and they kind just use it as their de-stressor before finals as well.”

McArthy said she went to White with the idea for the series of events last month.

“We always love involving student government in our activities,” McArthy said. “At the time we just had a couple of little ideas swirling around, and a bunch of student senators helped us come up with the name and brainstormed ideas for what we could do and what students would enjoy.”

Mercury Bowen can be reached at 581-2812 or mjbowen@eiu.edu.