Summer vacation is just around the corner for students in college. Students in high school still have to go through regents and finals, so unfortunately for them, they still have another month or so to go before they get out for the summer. Regardless, finals are a critical part of determining whether or not you pass the classes you’re taking about. Though they’re important for gaining credits and passing the class, how much are they affecting your mental health?
In my opinion, standardized tests in general are just another thing to add to the heightened stress meter in adolescents. High school students go to class six or seven hours a day, only to do homework for another few hours and study hard for a quiz the following day. College students have a more flexible schedule, yet most students spend more time studying for exams than learning the material directly from the professor. How are we expected to memorize everything that we learned in one day for a quiz or test the day after? Pop quizzes are even worse, because what if you can’t stay after school for help that day, or there is no extra help provided on that day? At my old high school, no after school help was provided on Mondays because of faculty meetings, yet I still had tests and quizzes the following day.
It may be a bit easier if the tests were simply on one specific topic, but what about finals? Ninety-nine percent of the time, final exams are cumulative, meaning that if you didn’t have time to fully grasp a topic because of the fast pace at which the subject is being taught, then you have to relearn an entire topic before the final exam. Final exams generally account for 25 percent or more of your grade, which adds excess pressure on students. They have one of two choices: to either pass the final with a decent grade, or watch your GPA plummet to nothing. To make matters even worse, not only do students have to relearn an entire semester/year worth of material in a subject, but they generally have to study for at least four or five different classes.
Now, I’m not sure how your school may do it, but at my old high school, my finals were mainly on one of two days, which means that immediately after I took one final, I’d have about an hour in between to forget the material for the one that I just finished, and start focusing on the material for the final that I’d be taking after. In college, it’s spread out into one whole week, but there’s much more material on my finals in college than there ever was on my finals during high school. There’s also more independence, meaning no review sessions or study guides like there were in high school, which makes it harder to determine which topics will be most frequent on the exam.
Thankfully, though the actual studying for finals is tedious, and some people (especially me) aren’t good test takers, my college has a “Countdown to Finals” week, meaning that the week before Finals Week, in between studying, people can go around campus and participate in fun activities. There’s a day for students who have test anxiety to pet and play with therapy dogs, a day to stress eat a variety of cheeses, a day to play board games, and there’s also pancake madness, which is usually the Friday before 24/7 quiet hours begin. Pancake madness is when the dining hall provides all you can eat pancakes, donuts, eggs, bacon (meat or veggie), sausage, donuts, mini muffins, and fruit salad. There’s also a DJ that comes to provide music that students can dance along to, and throughout the night, pancake madness shirts are thrown at the crowd. It’s a fun night to socialize with friends, meet new people, and forget about the stress before finals actually begin.
To anyone currently in high school: I suggest not working yourself to death trying to study for finals. Try to take breaks periodically to get a coffee with one of your friends, or watch an episode of your favorite tv show that you’ve been dying to see on Netflix. Not studying at all isn’t good, but studying for 7 hours straight isn’t healthy for you. According to a Stanford research study, “56 percent of the students considered homework a primary source of stress, according to the survey data. Forty-three percent viewed tests as a primary stressor, while 33 percent put the pressure to get good grades in that category. Less than 1 percent of the students said homework was not a stressor.”
My advice to both people in high school, and people in college: manage your time. Take everything one day at a time, and study in intervals. Study, but set timers and take breaks, or maybe nap in between if you predict that you won’t be sleeping much that night. Studying in moderation will keep your stress levels from going through the roof, and it’ll relieve some of the weight that’s on your shoulders. Good luck to everyone on their finals. You’ll do great!
