The season of midterms is upon us, and I’m sure everyone is extremely excited about that. If nothing else, it means you’re halfway through the semester and soon you’ll be able to start fretting over finals.
To maintain this ideal balance, midterms should take place before spring break for students’ mental health and so we can fully enjoy a week off of our studies.
For the lucky ones, your season of suffering came to an end before break. You already cranked out hours of studying and took the midterms for all of your classes, leaving you well on your way to a relaxing spring break. You were free to run off into the world, without the weight of the world upon your shoulders.
Still, there are a few of us who weren’t quite so fortunate. We’ve got exams after spring break, which makes complete sense, of course. After all, I would love to spend the duration of my break cramming dates and looking at notes. A week off of class means that you’ll need to stay refreshed over the break, lest you forget everything you’ve learned.
As the kids say, “the grind doesn’t stop,” and I don’t see why that shouldn’t apply to spring break too. Instead of going on a family vacation or visiting fun locations with friends, I think it’s every university student’s dream to stay home, create flashcards, work through example problems and memorize anything else we may need to know for an exam.
Shouldn’t a break be relaxing? We’re stressed all semester, but let’s also be stressed during the one time in the spring term that we’re supposed to be able to breathe because, why not?
Why does this feel a bit unfair? Well, there’s really only one pro to having your exams after Spring Break and that’s simply that you’ll get more time to prepare and study. (If you’re like me though, you could have an extra month and you’re only going to study in the week leading up to and night before the exam, depending on this test’s importance and difficulty.)
This isn’t an actual advantage compared to pre-break midterm students, because their professors are going to be different and give out tests that aren’t the same.
For the blessed university students that took their midterms before break, they were able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Get through these exams and you can go on break. For us post-break midterm test-takers, we’ve got nothing but terror and anxiety on the horizon. There will be no enjoying the break. There will be no anticipating a sigh of relief after the exam since the semester will just keep chugging on.