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The semester is almost over — three weeks and a few days to be exact. Before you take that big sigh of relief and start planning your holiday vacation, remember the last couple of weeks can be the most stressful and hectic of the entire semester.
The stress of school has already worn us down but, instead of winding down to a slow stop, the semester seems to speed up. Some professors assign a huge research paper or final project, a group presentation and a final exam.
In many classes, these last assignments can make or break your grade. I remember a psychology class I took a few semesters back where my entire grade was based on two exams and a term project.
The final and the term project made up the largest percent of my grade and were both due the last day of class. If, for any reason, I screwed up on those last couple weeks, I would have failed that class.
I never really understood why professors weigh so much of our grades toward the end of the semester.
I understand it’s important to test our cumulative knowledge, but I don’t think finals should count for 30 to 50 percent of our grade. I also don’t think final projects should be the only big assignment for class.
Professors and students can make several changes to their schedules to be sure the semester ends in a smooth jog instead of a mad dash to the finish line.
Professors should space out more assignments through the semester. They should have quizzes or smaller exams to help students build their grades.
It hardly seems fair that an entire semester’s worth of class should come down to a student’s performance in the last few weeks. They shouldn’t make the final project and final test weigh so much on your grade. Instead, final assignments should carry the same weight as the rest of the tests and homework.
For students, the last several weeks of our semester are filled with days spent meeting with our presentation group, endless hours of researching in the library and caffeine-fueled all-night study sessions preparing for all our finals and projects.
It is nearly impossible for us to create quality work that represents our knowledge on a particular subject under these circumstances.
Often times, we rapidly piece together work that is mediocre or “good enough” at best and our grades suffer because of it.
Students can take several measures to make sure we don’t suffer from a packed schedule these last weeks. We shouldn’t procrastinate, because we all know about final projects well in advance. We choose to wait until the last minute because we are too lazy to start sooner.
Waiting until the week before an assignment is due to get started makes it harder than it needs to be.
Instead, students should do the reading for book assignments at the beginning of the semester and use free days or furlough days to do library research — that is if it’s open.
By doing this, we not only cut down the amount of reading and research backlogged at the end of the semester, but we can also start thinking about our projects ahead of time.
If students and professors learn to space out schoolwork we can have fewer stressful last days and concentrate on those few, key exams.
We will also be able to produce work that best represents our knowledge of the class, not our frustration with an overbooked schedule.
Christian Gutierrez can be reached at
cgutierrez@theorion.com
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