I wholeheartedly agree with the column on so-called dead week – that is anything but, and that students deserve a break. I remember when I was an undergrad how the week was completely spent on papers, projects, and presentations. However, I have a slight issue with all of the frustration directed towards professors.  I’m a graduate student teaching my own course and am currently experiencing dead week both from the perspective of a student and of a professor at the same time, leaving me with a dead week that is very much alive and kicking my ass. So I’d ask you to bear in mind that professors have it rough during dead week too.

When I assigned my students a research paper, I specifically did not want it due during dead week. Dead week is crazy enough, and I wanted to give my students some kind of reprieve. However, now that I’ve done that, on top of all of my dead week duties as a student, I now have to grade all of those papers. Sure, it’s true that each of my students probably took longer to write his or her paper than it will take me to grade that one paper, but I’m pretty sure it will take me longer to grade all 40 of them than it took each student to write one.  And because this is how any student’s mind works (including my own!) mere days after papers were turned in, students started asking me questions about the final exam, which I had not yet begun writing because I had been focused on the papers! 

I’m not complaining about my job, obviously grading is part of it. But don’t blame the professors for dead week being what it is. Professors would equally benefit from reading days between classes and exams. So please remember, dead week isn’t dead for us professors either.

Marie Panepinto

graduate student, psycholog