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This week I will be running around campus without a second to spare, drinking coffee to stay awake until, well, my next cup of coffee.
There’s a good chance this maddening push towards final exams is going to kill me. I have more studying to do than I’m willing to admit and countless readings to catch up on.
But that’s not even the worst of it.
My first and second finals are on Saturday, or the way I see it, 22 hours after my last class of the spring semester.
Now, as finals loom over my head, I’m reduced to interweaving all the things I still need to finish for the semester, studying for finals and waiting in line for a cup of – as I’m calling it this week – “the will to go on.”
I’m so stressed out. It’s only a matter of time before I have a complete breakdown in line at the coffee shop. I can see it now. I’ll start bawling, grab the nearest person and scream in their face, as I hold back tears.
“Please make it stop! I can’t take this anymore.”
Hopefully this doesn’t happen, but if it does and you witness it, my name is Matt, and I promise you I’m not really crazy.
Without a break to catch up on an entire semester’s worth of information, it seems the CU academic calendar is playing some kind of sick joke on the student body.
The insanity of the end-of-the-semester crunch needs to be addressed, and I think there’s a simple solution. CU used to employ it, and it continues to be provided to students at college campuses around the country.
A reading day.
More might be helpful, but one would be nice.
The short break would ease the stress of finals and give students some much-needed time to study.
This spring, Colorado State University will provide their students a weekend for reading, and students of CU’s School of Law have several days intermixed in their exam schedules.
At Harvard University, undergraduate students have 11 days to prepare for finals.
And the list goes on.
Reading days are valuable commodities for students, and they encourage success.
Unfortunately after my last class, I’ll be left with 22 short hours, and that’s not taking into account the amount of time I’ll have to sleep. Wait, I’m only kidding myself. There won’t be any sleeping Friday, only reading.
I guess I’m about as prepared for this week as I can be. If I budget my time right, I might not lose my mind completely.
So thank you to whoever is responsible for the lack of reading days at CU. I really appreciate the added stress.
If this grueling, how-am-I-going-to-pull-this-off nightmare of a week doesn’t kill me, there’s a good chance all the coffee will.
Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Matt Davis at Matthew.h.davis@colorado.edu.
