As students are counting down the days until the school year ends, they are also feeling the pressure of finals week. With finals also comes dead week; a week when students supposedly have a light workload so that they can focus on studying and preparing for finals. Students often look forward to this time to mentally and physically prepare, using the quiet week to catch up on work and feel more confident in the knowledge needed for their finals. However, it seems some teachers have different plans.
Sophomore Natalie Keizer said that she hasn’t really gotten the true experience of a “dead week”. Many of Keizer’s teachers, from both past and current years, have given out assignments in that last stretch before finals. While Keizer believes a lot of the work was still important, she would rather have that time to study.
“I understand the reasons behind teachers giving assignments during dead week, but I would prefer having extra study time and time to ask questions,” Keizer said.
Some teachers do end up assigning important work during finals week, like Chemistry and Biotech teacher, Timothy Blok.
Blok’s Biotech students are working on a project final the last few weeks before the end of the school year. Due to the final is a project instead of a quiz, students don’t need extra study time during dead week.
“I think dead week should be mandatory. Not just because we want less work and more time to do nothing, but it better prepares us for our finals.”
– Maddie O’Sullivan
Sophomore
“Since we have a project final instead of a test, we don’t actually need time to study or do other assignments,” said Maddie O’Sullivan, one of Blok’s sophomore Biotech students.
Some teachers are still planning to keep up with their lesson plans. Even if teachers aren’t planning to be teaching new material, they still have extra assignments for students to do in the class periods leading up to finals.
“The assignments they do give sometimes feel crammed in, and not that important,” O’Sullivan said. “It feels like busy work.”
Even though some of the work assigned is substantial, most students feel dead week should be mandatory, to give students an extra chance to review everything before finals.
“With focused study and the chance to seek clarification on anything I’m confused on, I believe I would have a better grasp on the subject and feel more confident going into finals week,” Keizer said.
Students don’t want less assignments and work so that they can just sit around; most will take advantage of the time to study and ask questions.
“I think dead week should be mandatory,” O’Sullivan said. “Not just because we want less work and more time to do nothing, but it better prepares us for our finals.”
