The extra week added to our school schedule this semester has caused an uproar from not only students here are Cal State Long Beach, but faculty as well. This extra week was added due to the change in schedule for Thanksgiving. The punishment for having the Wednesday before Thanksgiving off is an entire week of school before Christmas.
I don’t know about you, but one day is not equivalent to seven. The reason we officially had the Wednesday off before Thanksgiving this year was due to the low attendance on in campus previous years. Personally, I would rather have an absence from one day and the week before Christmas free of school. This year, unfortunately, it will not be this way.
The complaints heard from students increase as each day draws us closer to finals. College students are famous for being skillful in the art of procrastination and yet these complaints have nothing to do with having this extra time. This makes for an interesting paradox. People who choose to procrastinate are not choosing to take advantage of this perfect opportunity by using the extra week for projects and studying.
Instead, they are protesting and arguing for the week that was to be eliminated. Students are eager to take finals early to get them done with and in most cases teachers are finding ways to avoid actually holding class during finals week.
Some teachers are having their students take their final test the week before and will have “class” during the allotted final time. Others simply have something due the final day and students only have to turn it in, then they can leave. The department standards that state teachers must have class during the finals period are being evaded left and right.
The effort that has been put into attempting to not hold finals during this extra week of school is an indication that the extra week will only mimic the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. In this sense, we should simply have not extended the semester.
Wanting to go home to family and end the semester are both major reasons why students and faculty do not wish to hold class during finals week. Some might add that they want to start Christmas shopping early. If you think that it is possible to Christmas shop and study for finals without being stressed out, you are living on another planet. If one leaves their shopping escapades until after finals, they are left with two days before Christmas, which can be just as stressful as finals.
Then, there is the problem of those who have to travel to make it home for the holidays. The roads and airports only grow more hectic as Christmas approaches. With finals lasting all the way through Friday, traveling is going to be a nightmare for those students who are going to be heading home two days before a national holiday.
We cannot do much this year about this extra week of madness, but the campus administration should take a hint. The problem can be easily solved: Go back to the original schedule. If they are concerned about low attendance for the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, then give us that day off. It is just one day.
Everyone has a life outside of school. Education is immensely important, don’t get me wrong, but there needs to be compromises in life and this is one of those times.
So this year we will pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and endure whatever our teachers require of us during this extra week for finals, but this needs to change and everybody knows it.
Jenna McDaniel is a junior arts education major and a weekly columnist for the Daily Forty-Niner.
