Holidays are coming up, but so are the end of the year finals. How is everyone really feeling? Aria Leonetti states that she “cant get sleep” due to how hard her classes have been and the “work has been piling up” nonstop. Sure, winter break is coming up fast, but so are finals and the first semester is coming to an end. There’s been nonstop work being thrown at students and units have been ending so that when they come back from break, a new one would begin.

 Although this may sound completely fine and it’s great that nobody would forget the unit, all it does is stress students out to the max. An anonymous student agreed that school has worn her out and she hasn’t been able to focus or think of anything else except for finals and projects that make her feel rushed. What can teachers do to make finals easier? “Giving students more time to work and not giving them a lot of work at once for such little time.” Leonetti suggests. As stated, students have been given huge projects that sink into the week students come back from break. This is not enough time for students to work because the break is supposed to be intended as a break from school, yet, if students were to finish these final semester projects in time, they would need to work on it during the break. It’s believed that students deserve more time on their projects before break, even if that means the work is given 3 weeks prior, as long as it doesn’t bleed into the time off. Students show that “Though freeing us from final exams would benefit us in the moment, they argued that it wouldn’t help us in the long run. If anything, it would leave us more stressed when faced with life-altering exams like the GRE or MCAT, or even with taking the SATs, ACTs, and APs.” (Patra)

This doesn’t mean that finals are bad or unnecessary, but that they aren’t more important than needed. Especially around the end of the year, or holidays, when everyone just wants a rest. Then once they get a rest, finals are right around the corner the second students are back from break. School systems have overworked students a lot, and only to give them loads of work for a tiny amount of time where they can barely complete it unless they are stressing themselves out. Several people don’t work great under pressure as well, which would make the work come out sloppy and it slowly ruins their mental health for the time being. These students won’t get sleep, or they will try to cram as much work as humanly possible, even isolating themselves, causing these students to have poor hygiene which can affect their performance. Once these students are stressed and can’t get a grip on reality, they will crash which is the opposite of what the school system is looking for.

Finally, students need more time to complete their work before break instead of being rushed when all that does is make the students stressed. If they get more time to work on their finals like how running start students get, their academic performance will not only come out less sloppy, but also more realistic.