The week of finals is characterized by several different aspects. first of all, there is the epic cram session. Similar to the cramming due to procrastination, these cram sessions contain a frantic, desperate mood and are accompanied by amounts of caffeine so large that they have the potential to induce heart attacks. For many students, their cramming sessions begin with a minor panic attack while they search for the textbook they haven't used in two months.
Another aspect of finals is the late/all nighter. Inevitably, the massive amount of writing/studying/panicking/reading/researching will pile up, mainly as a result of personal procrastination but also because professors can't seem to understand that you have more than one class. Therefore, the result is the late nighter. Or all nighter, depending on how (un)lucky you are. The late/all nighter starts out ambitiously strong; you are inspired in every word you type and you can read five pages of your textbook in under a minute. However, this transitions into the late part of the late/all nighter. The late part is somewhat sad. Your every move is sluggish, you yawn and blink every thirty seconds, and you catch yourself typing "I really don't give a crap about what Shakespeare was trying to symbolize in his 144th sonnet."You have just enough reason left to know that you ought to be going to sleep, but not enough reason to actually do it. As sad as the late part is, it is nothing compared to the all part of the late/all nighter. The all night part is a blur of caffeine, music, books, and for some reason the color purple. At this point, you have lost almost all coherency and you have to reread a page several times before you realize you still can't understand it and continue. The benefit of the all part of the late/all nighter is that you don't realize most of what goes on around you; you are typing with vigor, carefully watching the word-count go up, and you're thrilled that your paper is almost done. It won't be until the next morning that you realize your brilliant ideas are more incoherent than if you had typed them in Yiddish. But at least you'll have four hours or so when you actually feel smart.
During finals, you will come to realize exactly what kind of teachers you have. There's the surprisingly nice professor who only gives the final and maybe a small assignment. There's the teacher who gives the unsurprising amount, typically a final project and a test. Then, there's the malicious professor who gives a big paper, a small assignment, homework, plus a comprehensive final. Teachers' passive aggression has a tendency to show itself during the week before and of finals.
I still don't understand why teachers assign a huge paper that's due the same week as finals. Studying for tests is relatively easy in comparison. And yet, I'm required to write 2,500 words on a topic, find "credible" sources, cite them, assemble all this into a coherent format, pretend that I actually used the sources to write the paper, then submit it on time. In under 12 hours.
Finals are easily the most stressful time of the school year, where the stress of grades, deadlines, classes, exams, papers, flights, homework, assignments, selling books, late nights, and no sleep piles up on you. But when the light at the end of the tunnel turns out to be a train, just remember that after it plows you over, the semester will be over and you'll have a whole month for winter break. Happy studying.
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