The Finals Countdown

As the snow begins to hit the ground and hot chocolate begins to fill our mugs, another seasonal event draws near.

Final exams are Dec. 16-22 this semester and will provide some panic amid all the festivity in the air.

Urban Dictionary defines finals week as “the worst week of a college or high school student’s life.”

This semester’s finals begin on the Friday before Christmas. This may seem like unconventional timing as opposed to a normal Monday through Friday structure.

When students register for courses at the beginning of the semester, each course is assigned a number one through thirty-five. Each number corresponds to a scheduled final exam time.

Though final exams are at a new and random time, they are located in the course’s of normal classroom.

While the university tries to avoid students having any overlapping finals, there is always a chance someone is assigned multiple courses with the same final exam time. In this case, you are allowed to adjust the timing of one of them since it is not possible to take two exams at the same time.

Because finals week is such a stressful time for students, some have concerns over the fact that it is going to be over the span of two weeks this semester.

The reason for finals encompassing two weeks is because of the timing of Christmas this year.

Since Christmas is on a Sunday and the university starts its break on Dec. 22, finals week is only four days long. To make up for this missing fifth day, the first day of exams will take place on Friday, Dec. 16.

Some universities, like UW-Oshkosh, structure their final’s differently. They let professors place their finals within the normal class schedule.

At first, this seems to be a much simpler way of structuring things because students are already accustomed to their typical schedules and there’s already a lack of conflicts. There is not a final timetable to adapt to.

Despite all that, this does not take into account the fact that some classes are less than an hour long while some are over three hours long. All the classes run much differently throughout the semester. There is a lot more variety in how classes operate day-to-day.

Finals do not have that variety. Everyone’s final exams are more consistent. All the final exams are set in a two-hour block.

Sam MacGlashin, sophomore Biochemistry major,  enjoys having the longer time for finals and likes the way UWSP does their finals.

“I like the extended time for each final as opposed to the normal class times. Most of my finals happen on the same day I would normally have class anyway so it’s not too different,” MacGlashin said.

For other students, there is a silver lining to having finals include two different weeks.

After the first round of exams, everyone will have the weekend to cram for the next week of exams. This schedule potentially breaks up the barrage of finals they might be used to.

When final exams are all in the same week there is no weekend time to recover, recuperate and restudy for the next one. This semester we will have an additional forty-eight hours to cram for exams.

Some students prefer having all the finals back to back.

Sam MacGlashin actually prefers having her finals really close together so that it doesn’t draw out that stressful time of the semester.

“Personally, I like not having the finals week last too long. It’s nice to just get them all done with right away,” MacGlashin said.

Some people worry about being overwhelmed and having too many things to study for at once.

Other students don’t think too much of this year’s irregular schedule.

Megann Roszak, senior sociology major, finds little difference how finals go regardless of the schedule. She found the best way to not be overwhelmed by all the final exams is to priortize which classes you study for.

“I don’t have too much of a prefrence for when the finals are and I don’t study as much for the classes I am already doing really well in,” Roszak said.

Whether we want it to or not finals week is upon us. Students can easily see what their final exam schedule looks like by going under the academics tab on their MyPoint.

 

Wesley Hortenbach

Reporter

Whort350@uwsp.edu