Senior government and politics and history major
I have a special place in my heart for finals week. Strange as it may seem, I actually enjoy caffeine- and sugar-fueled essay-writing power hours. When I cram for my final exams, I never cease to be amazed at all the fascinating subjects I could have learned more about throughout the semester.
A personal favorite will always be HIST442: Twentieth-Century Russia. While I spent most of my semester doodling pictures of Vladimir Lenin and writing love letters to Peter Palchinsky, my frantic finals week study session helped me learn there was so much more to Russia — Kosygin reform, anyone? — even if I didn’t really care about it at all. Finals week will always be special to me.
But if there’s one thing I cannot stand about finals week, it is the incessant need for my peers to validate themselves and their course choices by complaining about how much work they have. While I’m largely empathetic to the struggle we students face during finals — sometimes one, two, maybe eight finals a day — I have difficulty feeling any sort of sympathy for people who spend more time complaining about the amount of work they have to do rather than doing it. Finals week is a competition; I learned that years ago as I stared down my biology professors in a virtual death match of wits and angry glances. But it’s a competition between professors and students — a struggle for the ages — not a competition between students.
I get it, I really do! Finals week is really, really hard sometimes. But I think the best way to deal with that is to accept it for what it is: a horrible, horrible moment in time I somehow manage to enjoy occasionally. In accepting finals week, though, we must strive to maintain positive attitudes and work together to make sure we all do well.
It doesn’t do anyone any good to spend time comparing who has it worse during finals week. Nor does it really help at all to post status after status on Facebook complaining about how much work you have to do or how few days until you’re free. Plus, it’s probably annoying!
We all have our courses to bear, and we all have our extracurricular activities, be they jobs, clubs or social lives. Finals week is difficult for everyone. Complaining doesn’t do anything to reduce your stress level or help you complete any of your work.
Joshua Dowling is a senior government and politics and history major. He can be reached at opinionumdbk@gmail.
