For nearly every student, it is safe to say that the end of the semester can be expected to bring a new level of stress.
Professors are starting to buckle down even more and finish all of the material they wished to teach in the class.
Finals are quickly approaching and students are rushing to finish learning all the material they need to pass the class.
Despite the challenges of the end-of-semester crunch, most students usually expect to be able to face it head on.
However, something about this semester has students unusually stressed about the workload they feel is now being dumped on them.
Many students have said that they feel their workload is far greater than it was at the end of the semester last year.
This is to be expected at least slightly because of students moving up a class level, however it is more than that.
I have heard the words “unreasonable” “excessive” and “extremely unusual” used to describe how much work is being assigned for the last two weeks.
The library seems to be more crowded than it was last semester at the end of the year (in my opinion at least) and people are spending more time working during the weekends and in between classes.
In a non-scientific survey conducted on Keene State College students, nine out of the 15 students asked felt they had exceptionally larger amounts of work at the end of this semester, compared to the amount of work they had.
These students were not all from the same “class” (freshman, sophomore, junior, senor), and were all from varied majors
If the survey is any basis for the rest of campus, that means that on campus the general attitude is there is an unnaturally large amount of work being assigned.
This occurrence of a heavier end-of-semester workload could have arisen due to a variety of reasons. One reason could have been the days off and the damages from Hurricane Sandy.
The college cancelled classes for a day and a half, and shut down operations. So there was at least one class lost for some teachers.
This is also not counting the classes that had to be cancelled for teachers who live out-of-state.
A lot of teachers had to cancel classes because of damages at home. This put a lot of classes behind the established syllabus.
Another reason that some of the classes are assigning so much work is the changes in the academic catalogue.
The way some of the majors are shifting to is changing some of the way that some of the classes will have to be taught in the future.
With changing academic policies, classes are becoming prerequisites for other classes that they may not have been beforew.
This is taking some of the attention of the teachers as well, and potentially diverting focus from being 100 percent on the in class material for the day to day.
This is not to say that it is all the professors’ fault that there is a lot of work.
Despite how smoothly the year goes, there is always going to be more work at the end of the semester, in order to make sure that everything that needs to be done gets done.
However with all of the little factors, the amount of work may seem like it is actually an extra large amount.
It is important to not let the work become overbearing however, and to make sure that you keep trying to stay on top of all of your work.
Despite the fact that it’s stressful, finishing out the semester’s work can seriously help (or hurt, if it’s not finished) one’s grade.
David Padrazo can be contacted at
dpadrazo@keene-equinox.com