Opinion | If these walls could talk, they’d scream: a glimpse into life at Hillman during finals week
By Allison Dantinne, Staff Columnist
December 9, 2018
Filed under Columns
The students studying for finals in Hillman are fascinating creatures, plagued by insurmountable stress manifested as odd habits. They gather around power sources, lean back in their swivel chairs while staring up at the lines of fluorescent lights and occasionally fall asleep on the floor under the c...
Opinion | Students leave gift of stress management unopened
By Julia Kreutzer, For The Pitt News
December 9, 2018
Filed under Columns
The Cathedral commons and dorm rooms are filled with Christmas trees, Hanukkah menorahs and dazzling twinkle lights, but students must survive finals week before they can truly “Deck the Halls.” During the week of finals, thousands of students spend countless hours holed up in Hillman Library while cr...
Students and faculty examine procrastination cures
By Mario Cattabiani III, Staff Writer
December 9, 2018
Filed under News
Cramming is a time-honored tradition at every college. But why do it, especially when many experts believe it is an ineffective way of studying?
Finals: A How-To Guide
By Jon Moss, Senior Staff Writer
December 9, 2018
With finals bearing down on Pitt’s campus, some students are worried about how to best prepare for the onslaught of school work. As students prepare to enter finals week, The Pitt News sat down with mental and physical health experts to learn what students can do to help manage stress and succee...
Prepare, don’t despair: Pitt students need reading days
By Neena Hagen, Senior Columnist
April 22, 2018
If you’re a Pitt student, looking at your school’s academic calendar is never fun. Your eyes scan the page filled with dates, head hung in despair as you realize Pitt has perhaps the skimpiest breaks of any university out there — including finals preparation, offering students one measly reading day...
Friday Fight: After April tears, May’s in the clear
By The Pitt News Editorial Board
April 19, 2018
Filed under Editorials, Opinions
It’s April ― flowers around campus are starting to bloom, the weather is finally warming up and the end of the semester is upon us. Pitt lets out for the summer earlier than most other schools, and while we can’t wait for classes to be over, the early ending can have its downsides. Here’s ...
Surveying the semester with OMETs
By Bailey Frisco | Staff Writer
January 10, 2018
Filed under Campus, News, Top Stories
As each semester winds down and students begin to prepare for finals, they are burdened with one more task to complete — OMETs. OMET — Office of Measurement and Evaluation of Teaching — is a department at Pitt that administers a survey of student opinion for professors. The main objective of the ...
Making the grade: Professors set aside time to score student work
By Salina Pressimone, Caroline Bourque and Rachel Glasser | TPN Staff
December 11, 2017
Filed under Campus, News, Top Stories
Last weekend you could probably find Leonardo Solano buried in the dissertation room of Hillman, or pocketed away somewhere in Panera Bread, grading 160 pages of undergraduate Spanish papers. While it usually takes graduate students such as Solano a long time to grade papers during the semester, finals...
Put the fun back in finals
By Sarah Shearer | Senior Columnist
December 10, 2017
“You can do this Tiana — you always make it through in the end,” Tiana Han says resolutely to herself. Han, a Pitt junior and biology major, lights a candle, settles into the desk in her apartment and gets down to business. She will only be there for a few hours at a time, though, taking break...
SGB pushes reading day initiative
By Nolan Roosa / Staff Writer
April 5, 2017
Filed under Campus, News, Top Stories
With only two meetings left in the semester, SGB made strides on Tuesday night to institute changes for the next academic school year, outlining future changes to the governing code and pushing their reading day proposal. Board member Rohit Anand proposed adding an extra reading day to give students...