Reading week is a one week break from teaching in Week 6 offered by a number of courses at the LSE. If you are fortunate enough to have one, reading week is a fantastic opportunity to take a breather, as well as get a few things done that you haven’t had the time to squeeze in during any of the already jam-packed weeks at university. At first, it might be tempting to take the whole week off from studying! However, while it is of course necessary to take care of your mental health, it is just as important to ensure you don’t allow yourself to fall behind too much to avoid undue stress later on. 

Here are three tips to help you to strike the right balance and ensure that you have a fulfilling and productive reading week.

Take at least one full day off from studying 

After making it through five packed weeks at the LSE, you absolutely deserve a short break to recharge and muster the energy and motivation to dive back into the second half of term. Naturally, how much free time you’ll have during the week will depend on what’s happening in your personal and work life as well as how much studying you have to do. However, taking at least one full day off from all university work really is a minimum requirement. This will allow you to temporarily switch off from the academic side of being a university student, and properly allowing yourself to enjoy a day away from studying will refresh your mind so that when you do get back to working you can do so with concentration and energy. Depending on how you like to spend a day off, you might want to either do something relaxing or energising, either with friends and family or alone. It is ultimately up to you to pick what you want to do and whichever day it is, whether in the beginning, middle, or end of reading week — just make sure you do take at least that one day off! 

Catch up on uncompleted work before term recommences 

Given that lectures and classes won’t run for courses holding a break for reading week, at least a couple of hours will be freed up during the week, providing you with a perfect opportunity to catch up on any work from the first half of term that you never got around to doing. Falling behind in some (or even all!) of your courses during the term is inevitable, but it is extremely important to make sure that required lectures and readings are completed at some point before essays are due and the exam period begins. Reading week really is the best time to do this, as trying to catch up on previous work whilst juggling the new content for each week is overly stressful and tiring, and therefore can easily spiral into getting burnt out during term time. Furthermore, finishing any incomplete work also gives you a chance to look over all of the content you have learned over the previous five weeks. This is a good way to help yourself gauge how much of the material you have understood and what areas you especially need to work on in the last half of term before exam season begins.  

Get started on essays and presentations in advance

If your course gives you a break during reading week, chances are that you will have an essay or presentation coming up sometime afterwards. If this is the case, it is somewhat expected that you will spend at least some time during the week to prepare for these assessments. Doing the bulk of this work during reading week as opposed to term time allows you to concentrate on producing your best work without the stress of having to juggle new content for each week alongside it. Given that you will almost certainly have to search for and complete a vast number of readings before writing an essay or creating a presentation, reading week is a great opportunity to get a headstart on this lengthy preparation. If an assessment is due straight after reading week, it is virtually unavoidable that you do most of the work during the break; if it is due a while later, preparing in advance always makes the affair less stressful!

Have a great reading week!