Finals finishing doesn’t mean the stress they brought with them is gone. Most of our professors have other responsibilities and cannot record grades as fast as we want them to. Waiting for grades to be posted can be more stressful than taking the final. Taking the final was one thing and that’s over with, there is no way to go back and change that answer so you just deal with it. Now you have to wait days to see if you passed the class or got that A you wanted. Your final grades can have a lot of impact on how much you enjoy the next three months of summer.
You might even think you’re going a little bit crazy waiting for your grades but don’t worry: we are all in this together. We all go through these stages while playing the waiting games -- a game that our professors clearly own…
Stage 1
Walking out of the final, checking your notes to see if you answered that one question right, and realizing you didn't. You immediately start wondering how many other mistakes you made. Then you start calculating the minimum grade you need to have gotten in order to just pass the class.
Stage 2
You get home after you take your final and if you finished your final before the allotted time, you wait until that time to start refreshing Canvas or Blackboard. You keep refreshing until you realize your grade isn't going to be posted anytime soon.
Stage 3
You have other finals to study for so you tell yourself to stop worrying about the grades of the finals you've already taken; but you can't stop worrying. As you study, you have those thoughts in the back of your head about what's going to happen if you didn't do well in that other class and it is impossible to concentrate. You use your "study breaks" to check on Canvas or Blackboard, because maybe your grade was posted and you simply didn't get the notification.
Stage 4
You finish all of your finals and it's time to pack up and go home. You're happy to be doing this because that means no responsibilities. But your final grades have still not been posted, so you don't know if you should be happy or sad. You're still stressing out, even after you threw away all of the material you learned all semester in that one class you absolutely despised.
Stage 5
You get home and your family is eager to know how well (or how poorly) you did this semester. They keep asking about your grades, but you still don't know how you did because your grades are nonexistent. Of course, they think you're lying, because in their heads you probably crashed and burned and are dropping out of school (not really but this is what our stressed-out brains like to think).
Stage 6
The day is finally here!! Your grades are posted and you are rejoicing. Although you are happy that your grades are now available for you to see, this also brings a lot of stress to your life because you are about to find out how well (or how badly) you did.
In the end, we never really win. Everything that has to do with finals stresses us out. From the weeks approaching finals, to finals week, to waiting for our grades. It's awful! But I think what keeps us going is knowing that every finals week we have to go through gets us one step closer to our last one. So let's all hang in there, we can do this! And if you're stressing out about your grades not being posted yet, go out and get some ice cream. You deserve it!
