ZOE ROGERS / OPINION EDITOR

Finals season’s suspenseful approach has filled the minds of many college students as we enter the last few weeks of the academic year. Calendars are becoming more jam-packed as students start holding their breath for the start of their final exams and projects. However, students have no time to actually prepare for the final season. With our last school day being Friday, May 16 and the first exam date on the following Monday, students  are not being set up for success in the long-awaited exam season. USD needs to give their students at least three to five days of no classes to prepare for a week of finals. 

Over these past few weeks, it has become increasingly difficult to manage time efficiently. With homework due in the next few days and exams to study for at the same time, students are in the midst of chaos. Not giving  us at least three  to  five   days off  of  school  to study  for  finals  is  detrimental to us. While students have the weekend, they also need it to recharge from the last week of classes.  

Cengage, an education site that provides online learning platforms, explained the importance  of   having at least  five  days  to study before  an exam. 

“Ideally, studying should start at least  five  days  in  advance of the exam to allow students an ample amount of time to go over course concepts and materials, and reach out to their instructor or peers if they find they have any questions,” Cengage wrote. 

A  weekend is not  enough time to begin studying for our exams the following Monday. Plus, this puts a lag in studying for our exams the rest of the week, prompting a time management challenge for students. It is too difficult to begin studying for our exams during the academic week while also packing to go home and trying  to take time for our mental well-being. We have projects, presentations and essays that are holding all of our attention. Only once those assignments are completed can we then start focusing solely on exams. Stacking these assignments on us one after another, without giving us time to catch our breath, can lead to adverse impacts on our mental health. 

Navigate 360, a site that is used to support student success, states the impact of the ruthless academic cycle  and what that stress can lead to. 

“Students caught in this cycle often feel there’s no way out,” Navigate 360 wrote. “Academic stress leads to poor performance, which then creates even more anxiety — especially when school culture places a premium on achievement over well-being.” 

Academics can lead to issues of anxiety and stress in students, especially when they feel there is a higher risk factor in performing poorly. If USD wants to prioritize  our well-being over achievements, they need to implement a long study schedule. Plus, students  are more likely to succeed if they have more study days, allowing them to space out their study time and further their academic success. 

The National Library of Medicine, the world’s largest biomedical library, provides the benefits of spacing out your study tasks. 

“The ‘spacing effect’ describes the phenomenon wherein, when given equal study time, spacing study out into multiple sessions promotes greater long-term learning than massing (i.e., cramming) study into one study session,” the National Library of Medicine wrote. 

If students are proactive with their study schedules, plan out their time wisely and are on top of their workloads, a weekend could possibly be a sufficient amount of time to prepare for finals. If students allocate their time wisely, they could begin studying for finals the week before during the last week of classes  and have enough time to prepare for exams.

While in some cases this may be possible, each student comes with their own array of tasks and projects that fill up their time within the last week of classes. For some students, it feels almost impossible to think about studying for finals when they have a project and essay due for every class. 

Implementing at least three to five study days will allow for USD’s undergraduates to prepare fully for exams, diminish the presence of academic stress  and convey  that USD values their students’ well-being over  their  academics. 

Giving students more study days could benefit their mental health and academic performance. Photo courtesy of @anniespratt/Unsplash

The views expressed in the editorial and op-ed sections are not necessarily those of  The USD Vista staff, the University of San Diego, or its student body.