(Photo courtesy of ADDitude) “Final exams at UMass Lowell begin on December 14 and conclude on December 20.”
Tanner Hume
Connector Editor
It’s the most horrible time of the year. Where we have to go suffer in all of our classrooms in preparation for the finals. But alas, it is that time. The only thing that is worse than the finals themselves are the god awful final exam schedules. So let me rant about it for a bit.
The final exam schedule is probably the worst thing to exist on this very planet. While I understand we need 3 hours for each exam, the times and days that are scheduled for these exams are brutal. First things first, do we really need a Saturday exam? No, we really don’t. It is a load of crap and instead of being civilized in scheduling finals from Mondays-Fridays, we are stuck having to come in on the weekend and talk about how cool science is or why the civil war was the worst event in all of human history. It does not take a genius to see that Saturday exams are a horrible idea. Please get rid of them, and every student here will thank you and serenade this school with gifts and flowers.
The second thing, no one wants to be here until 6pm doing exams. I’m not sorry for saying this, but if I had to go in for an exam and I did not get out until 6pm, chances are that I am going to go ice swimming in the Merrimack River trying to just wake up. Having an exam run that late will cause nothing but a lack of motivation to do anything, but heat up instant ramen and pass out on the couch. I think the absolute latest they should go to for these exams is 5pm. Anything beyond that is a crime against humanity.
The third thing, the length of the exams themselves. The time slots are fine, but do we really need a elongated exam? I know some classes are focusing on specific parts of the course, which is great. But others cover the entire course for content. If professors are going to do that, then for the good gods that oversee our universe, please just put a couple of questions per section so the exam is shorter and less convoluted. That way, people will only need about half that exam frame, which gives the students more time to eat and prepare for the next exam, the professor more time to grade the exams and the college more time to put more exam time slots, eliminating Saturdays altogether.
I love this school, seriously. But it is so difficult to navigate at how troubling these exams are and the negative effect they have on us students, especially the later they go into the day. If anyone from UMass Lowell who schedules the exams reads this, I have a proposal for you. The final exam schedule would be a lot better time wise for everyone. Make the exam blocks an hour and a half long, require that professors focus on a certain part of the course, as to not overwhelm students in preparation for other exams, and please, please, please no more Saturday exams. If that happened, this school would be a much better place.
I rest my case.
