EDITORIAL – Pitt’s finals system tests students’ sanity

Maybe it’s cliche to wake up one day in April and realize that the semester sure has gone by… Maybe it’s cliche to wake up one day in April and realize that the semester sure has gone by fast. But here at Pitt, the semesters really do go by that fast.

While our unfortunate peers at other universities are still slogging through classes, we’re almost finished.

In order to have such short semesters, we’ve had to make some sacrifices. For instance, other schools get “reading days,” in which students can catch up on the work they’ve neglected. Instead, we get the weekend before finals to cram all this knowledge into our little heads.

So the lack of reading days is understandable. The institution of early, long Saturday finals isn’t. As it stands, Pitt’s system for scheduling finals is absurd, bordering on cruel.

First, finals are substantially longer than the classes they’re for. If a class meets for one hour, then the final should be for one hour — a simple, easy equation even the most right-brained lit major can understand.

And what of cumulative finals? Well, not that those do anything more than make students re-cram what they’ve already been tested on once, but professors should figure out a way to integrate old material into current questions rather than just asking twice the number of questions.

And if finals were to last the duration of a class period, they could be given at the time the class is. It’s unnerving to have to take a final for a 4 p.m. class at 8 a.m. After a semester of conditioning, our minds are preset to learn certain things at certain times. The only thing most of us can think about that early is how to hit a snooze button or make coffee.

This isn’t just a matter of us not wanting to get up at the crack of dawn to fill out those blue books until our hands cramp — well, there is that. It’s unfair to be trained to do something at a certain time, and have much of our grade ride on our ability to instantly reverse this programming.

And if long finals held at odd times weren’t bad enough, some finals are held in classrooms different from those in which the class was taught. Now, we paid attention in psych class. We know that there’s an environmental component to learning, and that removing students from the environment where they’re accustomed to learning will do nothing but disorient their sleep-deprived brains.

Then there’s the matter of finals that count toward 40 percent of our grades or more. Sure, some people need the final as a cushion in case they’ve slacked off all semester. For the rest of us who’ve conscientiously done our work, it’s a punishment, since one bad day can ruin a semester’s worth of hard labor. The final should count as just another midterm, something that can help or hinder a grade, not redeem or tank one.

As for departmental finals: These need to end. Students become familiar with a professor’s testing and grading style. Forcing them to take a test written by someone they didn’t have class with is pulling the rug out from under them.

Of course, all these suggestions aren’t going to do us any good now. We’ll suffer through our Saturday 8 a.m. finals that will inevitably count for 40 percent of our grade and measure our ability to fill in tiny bubbles.

Still, looking toward the future, the University needs to reconsider how it schedules finals, and professors need to revise the weight they assign finals. We’re students, so there must be something about college we like — but the way that Pitt does finals isn’t one of them.