Finals Week, Is It Fair?

As midterm ends and the students get a break to recuperate, some are already gearing up for finals. The end of the year exams is the week that all students learn to fear. Its not just the stress of studying that causes students to feel anxiety it’s also because of the multiple exams in a short time frame. Some students will have back-to-back exams and the really unlucky will have all of theirs scheduled in one week. Students learn not to schedule anything else during that period of time because all their time will go to studying and trying not to stress out. While professors aren’t villains sometimes during exam week they feel like it.

But is this short of pace healthy for the students and does it allows students to showcase what they’ve learned to the best of their ability? I don’t believe so. Finals week involves long trips to the library, the cancellation of all social interaction (not related to study groups), bad eating habits and for some, bouts of crying. The exhaustion sets in pretty quickly not allowing students to do their best. How well can you really do on exams when your sleep deprived and only had pizza and/or takeout for the past week? I think that if professor really want to gauge what students have leaned and mastered testing should occur when their cognitive abilities are at 100%.