OP-ED: Saturday Finals and being rampantly obnoxious
Victoria Blake, tired junior
December 5, 2016
Recently, Tarleton has decided to allow Saturday finals. While some are angry about it-with reason; after all, who would want to cut hours studying for Monday’s finals while taking one final? But on the other hand, you get done with your exams that much faster and get to go home to that sweet tasting Egg Nog or whatever you drink during the holiday season.
But instead of complaining openly about the end of the semester among other things so openly, I suggest another way to put that anger to good use. Instead, please attempt to use the anger towards some motivation. What is something you really want besides failing this semester? Good Holidays, someone you admire to notice you, maybe land a great gig – I don’t know you, but that’s just a few guesses.
Don’t get me wrong, I voted against having a Saturday final myself-only for it to turn into a Saturday final to popular vote. But I am not one to complain – to talk openly at all for that matter, so I just drop it. But, with that said, I offer some kind of studying advice that I’ve come across recently.
Lately, I came across this article that introduced the Pomodoro effect. It was basically a tomato timer that after 25 minutes of studying the timer would go off and you get a 15-minute break of either mindless task, or a video on YouTube that didn’t require you to think. When 15 minutes goes off, you go back to work for another 25 minutes. After 4 sessions of this, you get to take a 30-minute break.
I tried this recently, and it helped some also gave me incentive to tackle some boring tasks, but I digress – get the studying finished and you get rewarded with something more enjoyable. Another part of the Pomodoro effect was if you think of something during the 25-minute session that is unrelated to what you’re focused on it, you write it down on something else and then when you are done, you can go do that thing or something else.
It probably is not the first of its kind, but it’s a start. Instead of being obnoxious and complaining a lot, get it over with – one Pomodoro at a time.
Sheila • Jan 16, 2017 at 3:28 PM
Why is Tarleton in such a rush for their students to finish finals. We work hard all semester long and then they have us cram in finals.
Last semester I had a final on dead day. Yes, dead day. So, we had class and lecture as well as a pop quiz on one day and the very next day we had our comprehensive final. I am told they can do this because instead of the exam being during the day, like our regular class, it was scheduled at night.
As a class, for a comprehensive exam, we did not have even one full day to study for an exam that was worth 40 percent of our final grade.
No good.