As winter break draws near, the snow-covered campus lays in a chilly, iced hush. This is mostly due to the fact that Transy is instating 24-hour quiet time in the dorms. As the cold encroaches, finals time is upon us…
By attending a top-notch liberal arts institution like Transy, you commit yourself to four years of hardcore intellectual inquiry. This is more than an education, but a path to self-discovery. Yes, homework is an essential part of this process, but you know you’ve found your place in the world when you come to enjoy the topics you’re reading-and-discussing (as is the educational model at small schools like Transy). It is nature’s way that all of this inquiry and discovery must necessarily culminate into some form of trial and assessment.
Here’s way this works at Transy: all classes will wrap up by the end of this week. Students will celebrate - in some cases breathing a sigh of relief - that they’ve accomplished the material for this semester’s courses. But the true end is still in sight. After a weekend devoid of social events and a Monday (dubbed “Reading Day”) filled with frantic cramming, students will conquer their FINAL EXAMS.
As a first-year, I am sufficiently afraid. Not of the exams themselves, because when it comes down to that, it’s only a matter of whether you know it or not. I fear studying the most. Cumulative finals expect you to either retain or relearn all of the material the course has covered, from September through December. I have a ton of reading, problem solving, and all-night cram sessions ahead of me.
But, as a fellow scholar recently told me, “I don’t mind pulling an all-nighter that might end up securing my future.”
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