Dead week: a time when students expect to prepare for finals without stress of new material. This week, however, can seem to be a time that requires zombie students to come back to life to work their hardest as they near the end of the semester.
From Dec. 7 to Dec. 11, classes are busy reviewing material that they have been learning since the beginning of the year. This is meant to be a time when no new material is being introduced, and students have a chance to go over everything they have learned during the semester.
Freshman Logan Bonetti explained what she believes is the purpose of dead week.
“I think dead week is meant to be a time to prepare for finals in all your classes” said Bonetti.
Many feel that dead week has become too stressful for students handle. With studying, review activities, and early finals in many of their classes, some students feel overwhelmed with amount of work they receive.
Sophomore Elise Haugerud, who takes many honors classes, feels the pressure during the week.
Haugerud said, “I feel like teachers assign a lot of work during dead week and it makes me feel overwhelmed, but it does prepare me for finals the week after.”
Teachers have various methods of preparing their students for finals, ranging from review projects to assignments. These are meant to help refresh students’ memories about what they may have forgotten throughout the semester and will need to know for their finals.
History teacher Greg Schoenstein said, “Dead week is supposed to be a time without new work, to give the students enough preparation to take their finals. It does not necessarily mean less work, but it should be nothing new. Review assignments should reinforce the lessons learned from the year.”
Although students can feel stressed during dead week, some say that the stress can be beneficial.
“Staying stress-free is important, but stress is not inherently bad for students. There is an ideal level of stress for each one of us, which helps motivate us to do our best. When we are functioning at that ideal level, we are sufficiently pushed to do our best, yet not paralyzed by the results of excessive stress. The goal is to find the ideal stress level and then try to stay there,” said Champlain College Assistant Vice President for Student Life Carol Moran-Brown
Whether or not students have feel overwhelmed during dead week, it is a time to prepare and study for finals- a common source of stress for anyone.
