by Morgan Roberts–Moving during finals is potentially one of the most stressful things students experience their final semester of the year.
Classes are assigning end–of–the–year projects, exams, and papers, meaning students already have a full plate with studies. Unfortunately, Morningside does not provide ample time for students to focus solely on exams before leaving for the year.
Larger universities have a “dead week,” a pre–finals week of no classes. Students an study and use free time to begin moving out. Morningside should consider this for the future to alleviate some stress from their students.
Morgan Petersen, a student at Iowa State University, has already moved back home for the summer, using the dead week time to move out before her finals began.
“This kind of gives me the time to move back home and get settled in before I need to start my studying. When we were in–person I still used the dead week to mostly pack and study but I didn’t feel the pressure of running out of time to do everything before the end of the year,” Petersen says.
We’re only given 24 hours after our last final to checkout, resulting in students needing to prepare to move beforehand while simultaneously finishing their final papers and studying for their exams.
Jenna Dirkx, a Morningside English education major, has the stress of finalizing her papers for the year, moving, and continuing her track season.
“It’s just hard to stretch myself so thin and force myself to make time that I don’t have. With studying and writing alongside practice, I need to sacrifice sleep to get all of my belongings packed which is so draining,” Dirkx said.
Finals are a stressful time for everyone and students shouldn’t have to sacrifice their health to stay on top of their hefty end–of–the–year schedules. It would be to everyone’s benefit to add a “dead week” just to give students a moment to breathe before their final exams.
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