Despite the late start to the school year, students not happy about finals in January

Although it has been quite a rocky year, the change to the finals schedule is yet another “new normal” students are being asked to adapt to. Finals will no longer be held before Winter Break. They will be held Jan. As our community returns to a “mini-lock down,” as the COVID-19 cases rise, in-person students have been moved to online from Nov. 30. It has yet to be decided when they are to return to in-person.
With all students now online in some format, it is difficult to say when we will be back. The format and content of finals will most likely be different.
I don’t like having finals after our Winter Break because I don’t think that I, or many other people, will be able to retain all of the information after having a break from school and having to be online as well. It will be even more difficult for me to focus on the work provided to me. I do like that finals are being held off until we are perhaps able to go back into an in-person format.
With the combination of finals being after a long break and most likely looking quite different, this will bring a lot of challenges to most students. Concerns like a lack of focus and lack of knowledge, after not being oriented to being in school, could cause students to crack under pressure.
Students will not be studying over Winter Break and perhaps they should not. Online school and the general pressures of being a teenager in 2020 has been stressful. Students will be less knowledgeable in subjects that they have finals for. At the time being, there is no information on how teachers plan to continue with final exams and what approaches to it they are considering.
A few of my teachers have given some information on how we may be able to do a project instead of an actual exam because to do a final exam online would most likely be too difficult for teachers to monitor.
Students have their own points of view on this topic.
“I don’t understand why it was decided to put finals in January, sophomore Nargis Suleman said.
“I and many other students are going to feel even more pressured to spend our entire enter break studying, having finals before the break was always a good way to go out.”
After putting out a survey on the Spotlight Instagram, the account received several direct responses that having finals after the break would be harmful to students as they would stress the entire break and spend their time studying.
“I would rather spend my holiday break having fun with my family, but this year I’ll be stressing about studying for school,” sophomore Caroline Orr said.
Even though I believe that finals after the Winter Break are an awful thing for both our students’ mental health and wellness, I also believe, as most students do, that returning to school in the next few months to be the first step to getting back to our normal school lives.