Finals week really a finals fortnight

Finals week: (n.) The period of time in which students are given their last exams of the… Finals week: (n.) The period of time in which students are given their last exams of the semester. At Pitt, this process goes on for two weeks. Over the years, the traditional seven days set aside for testing has become a finals fortnight, forcing students to take and study for examinations in the same time period.

Pitt’s calendar gives us a chance to start summer vacation before most other universities. We can bask in the warm sunshine and get some rest — things we have missed for the two weeks prior to the end of the second semester because of the ambiguous finals schedule for most arts and sciences classes.

Why have finals week if there are finals given before that time? When one or two professors want to have more time to grade exams and papers, it is a relief to the student who gets one thing out of the way before being bombarded with other exams. But when almost every professor starts moving final exams to the week before finals week, we have a problem.

Universities like Temple and the University of Pennsylvania give their students reading days — days where students are expected to study because classes aren’t in session, and tests aren’t scheduled — in preparation for finals week. At Pitt, not only are we denied these days to prepare, but also we have to recall an entire semester’s worth of information in less than a week, which can count for up to 50 percent of our final grade.

Be reasonable, Pitt. We want to be good students and do well in our classes. We just need time to prepare. How prepared can we be when we are not getting enough sleep and experiencing crunch-time jitters?

Being tested physically, mentally and emotionally is unfair and extremely stressful. Continuing to do this demonstrates a major lack of foresight — read: stupidity — and resembles a two-week hazing rather than a test of knowledge acquired.

There are those who have the strength for such a process. There should be the option to forego days of study for those few and brave students to take an early final, but for the rest of us, a final during finals week is not too much to ask for.

Rather than the all too familiar binge-and-purge method of learning that occurs when finals are administered before finals week, we would have enough time to digest the information. Doesn’t that sound healthier?