The following piece, written by the editorial editors, reflects the majority opinion of the editorial board.
The clock on the wall seems to be ticking louder than normal. The person next to you has been tapping their foot for the last twelve minutes. That girl two rows in front of you has been flipping through the pages of the exam much faster than you. Your head is cloudy as you struggle to remember just what you've been learning all semester.
This is the common mentality of a student during finals week. We are suffering from a lack of sleep, an overloaded brain and probably a bad case of grade anxiety. But, at the end of the week, what have we accomplished? The Editorial Board believes, sadly, that finals are failing us.
Think back to the classes you took last semester. If you were asked a question about the material you learned in a particular course, would you be able to provide the correct response? Probably not. This is because, just as we have done all our lives in school, we learned the material to take the test, not to absorb the information.
We at The Miami Student feel finals are not the best way to end a semester. The system has become so flawed that we dread learning material for classes that we should love and be excited about.
Professors and faculty members reading this might be thinking that we are just some students who are trying to avoid tests and studying, but hear - or rather, read - us out.
The material we remember best from our classes over the years is not the subject where we had a cumulitive final that forced us to memorize months worth of information. In fact, the classes that had the largest impact on us and that we remember the most clearly are the courses that involved a small final or no final at all.
A number of Miami University courses offer semester-long projects or papers that are due during finals week instead of a final exam. For some students, these projects or papers might be put off until Thanksgiving break and still result in a lot of cramming of information.
However, the idea of semester-long finals is that, rather than focusing on the material just days before a final exam, students are actively engaged in the subject matter throughout the entire semester, and are therefore dedicating time to the course on a regular basis.
We at The Miami Student believe these courses challenge students to think critically throughout the entire semester rather than just the week before finals. In doing this, students are actively learning and are more likely to absorb the material for the long term.
Students can only handle so much, and at a time where we feel compelled to take extra credit hours while balancing an internship, an on-campus job and club involvement, we think that students have reached their breaking point.
We all want to be the perfect student with the perfect resume: a great GPA, several notable internships and leadership positions in a variety of organizations. But we have come to a pivotal point where we must decide what is most important to us, and we might need to accept that we are not capable of doing all these things perfectly.
The editorial board hopes that professors who read this will consider offering projects rather than finals, which allow students to absorb information and truly involve themselves in the course material rather than simply remembering the details for the final. We truly feel that these projects and papers are a better indicator of student ability and dedication than a multiple choice test.
And for students, who hopefully took a break from studying for their finals to read this editorial, we ask that you take a step back and think about how much you are able to handle and still be a healthy individual. We all want to be able to successfully handle a million different obligations, but at a certain point we are putting ourselves in a position where we are no longer mentally, emotionally or physically healthy.
So, even if you're still taking six finals next week, don't forget your top priority is yourself - not your 4.0 GPA or your 8 a.m. calculus final. Remember to get enough sleep, eat regularly and take a break when you need to. Getting that extra hour of sleep will be more helpful to your grade than another hour of studying while half asleep.