Here goes another not-so-dead week

Another semester winds down again with the depressingly not-so-dead week that, much like the Bell Tower, lures students into believing something that isn’t true – there are still no bells and this week still isn’t dead.  I’m batting 100 percent so far in my academic career in experiencing a very much alive dead week, and unless something dramatic happens next semester, I’m pretty sure it’s going to end up being the same story.

I wouldn’t have an issue with dead week not really being dead if they’d just get rid of the name so that people can stop pretending like it’s really supposed to be a period of studying for the upcoming exams. It’s a charade, a cruel but well-intentioned illusion — after a semester of hard work, you can have five days of rest and repose to review for the upcoming exams.  That gets tossed out the window with presentations, tests, quizzes, papers due and a whole smorgasbord of graded assignments that just create added pressure during a week that for some students is actually the most stressful out of the year.

Like Matt Robbins is trying to fix the Bell Tower by adding bells, Amber Joyner and members of Student Government led a commission last year to try and institute reading days at the end of the calendar so students could actually have 48 hours where their minds could clear and study for the upcoming exams. 

I was ecstatic at the thought that we may actually get some sort of repose – but my enthusiasm was dampened when I learned that these reading days would not take place the Thursday and Friday of dead week, but rather the Monday and Tuesday of the following week before exams. I guess that’s what they call a compromise. Don’t get me wrong — I still plan on using those days for something and I’m sure it’ll be academic related – but the professors could still be a little kinder and make an attempt to act in the spirit of the week.

It’d be nice if there were no tests this week regardless of whether or not they were scheduled at the beginning of the semester. We’ve got enough cumulative tests the following weeks for exams so if it’s that important to test us on something – ask it on the final. Presentations are fine because they’re a culmination of weeks’ worth of work, for the most part, but cut out the massive papers that all somehow are due on the last day of class and push the due dates to a different time.

It’s not that one paper during dead week is bad or that one test during dead week is bad – it’s the culmination of professors all cramming last minute assignments in during dead week that drives some students to actually need the Hillsborough Hike to drown the week’s stress away. It’s impractical to believe that this is going to change – but it’d be nice if professors acted in the spirit of dead week rather than the contrary.

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