Pitt administrators, students discuss finals schedules

Some Pitt students will take their final exams in many classes this week, although they won’t… Some Pitt students will take their final exams in many classes this week, although they won’t be official in the eyes of Pitt’s administration.

Those tests listed as the official finals, or “final examinations” on a course’s syllabus must be given during Pitt’s scheduled finals week. Juan Manfredi, vice provost for undergraduate studies, said Pitt’s Office of the Registrar schedules all finals.

“If a course syllabus includes a final examination, it must be given as scheduled by the registrar’s office and not at other times to allow for the students to prepare for other class activities and examinations, and to minimize schedule conflicts, even if the faculty member and all students in a course agree to such a change,” Manfredi said in an e-mail.

He went on to say that other late semester examinations, which he defined as “anything which is not a final,” are set by departments or individual professors as they see fit. These tests should be indicated in the course syllabus, Manfredi said.

However, if professors do not have official finals scheduled on the syllabus, they determine the testing schedule for the semester — which could include a de facto final exam this week.

For example, one professor, who wished to remain unnamed, said that this year, his last exam was scheduled for this week rather than during finals week.

“As part of my final, I require my students to attend an event and then review it, and being that the schedule of the event varies from year to year, it sometimes happens that it falls outside of finals week. So this year happened to be one of the instances it falls outside of the University slated time,” he said during a recent interview.

Additionally, the professor found that in previous years when this same conflict arose, students typically performed better on the final examination when it fell outside of the actual week for finals.

“I think it has something to do with students just being less stressed. It gives them a chance to unwind before they have to focus on dealing with all their other finals. Even though it isn’t advisable, in most cases students cram for their finals anyways, so not having to do this during that week takes pressure off them,” he said.

Other professors have their last exams set up like regular tests to allow flexiblity.

For instance, another professor who also wished to remain anonymous was able to hold her unofficial final this week instead of during finals week.

“Because my test is called ‘exam four’ on the course syllabus and is not a final, [I could offer it earlier]. If it was the final examination I would give it during finals week at the time and place that it is scheduled,” she said in an e-mail. “Since it is the fourth exam of the course, and carries the same weight as the prior three, it is not considered a true final.”

She said that the choice to hold the final a week early came through a consensus made between her and her students.

“My final was scheduled to be Monday at 8 a.m. following Easter weekend. I felt that students should have another option. If my final was the only exam they had to take that week, by offering on Friday, students could go home for the weekend and not have to return for 8 a.m. on Monday morning or allow them to spread out their finals a bit more,” she said.

But students don’t seem to mind finals not taking place during the actual week.

Sophomore Julie Hallinan said that the majority of her finals are not during the actual University specified week.

“Every semester I’ve managed to have a final Saturday afternoon. This semester, I only have one final during the actual finals week,” Hallinan said. “It is nice to get done early.”

Freshmen Melissa Dolan has a similar situation. Her Introduction to Psychology course had five exams over the course of the semester. Four exams take place before finals week, with the fifth exam taking place during finals week.

The highest scores on four of the five exams are used when factoring the student’s final grade for the course.

This means that if students do well enough on the first four exams, they technically do not have to take the final if they do not want to.

“I like the way it is set up a lot, actually,” Dolan said. “It is motivation throughout the semester to do good on the exams so you can avoid taking the final. Plus, with the fourth exam being so close to finals, it’d be a lot to study for the last exam on top of the final.”