This semester, finals will run from Thursday, December 13 to Tuesday, December 18, separated by a weekend, as opposed to previous years’ three-day exam schedule.
By inserting a weekend in between exam days, students are given a few extra days to either relax or study for their upcoming tests. Dean of Studies Evan Barth explains that new arrangement is merely the result of the placement of the holiday break rather than an intentional change.
“It was just basically [because of] the calendar of the year; it was kind of a funky calendar, and the administration decided last winter when they were setting the calendar [so] that Wednesday would be the first day of break, and the final schedule got backed out of that,” Barth said.
In addition to altering the placement of finals in the week, the exams also begin one hour later than they did in previous years. Similar to the schedule modeled last spring, the first final of each day begins at 9 a.m. and ends at 11 a.m. A lunch break follows the first final, and the second final commences at noon and runs until 2 p.m. Since three hour exams start at 8 a.m., everyone finishes the first final at the same time and starts the second final together.
“I think it’s nice that we have a weekend in between because that’s a bit less stressful so that we don’t just have finals all the time; there’s a break in between,” Simran Singh (10) said.
However, not all students think that the weekend provides any extra help than a normal, block schedule. For Sahana Narayanan (9), the new schedule will not alter the way she prepares for the exams.
“I think it is definitely a change […], but it doesn’t really affect how I will take the final,” Sahana Narayanan (9) said.
The first final of the year, History, begins on Thursday, December 13, less than two weeks from today.