My tip for finals week? Don’t call it finals week.

Year after year, this annual, involuntary seven-day tradition has incited mania similar to the kind that surrounds a season finale or a sports championship. If it wasn’t called finals week, it might as well be declared the 2019 Pepsi Final Week Bowl (with limited commercials).

If only finals week was a time when we could relax and eat nachos on the couch. Just the name sounds menacing, like it’ll suck the soul right out of you. It often does just that. Around Reading Day, students will inevitably start to share stories of study marathons, all-nighters and coffee for meals. 

In the eyes of a finals-week veteran, this kind of talk may seem regular around this time. It’s a shame if it does. Physical and mental health shouldn’t be kicked to the curb at the moment they are most crucial. No matter what the occasion, students shouldn’t normalize sleep deprivation, malnutrition or astronomical stress levels, let alone glamorize all three. 

Finals week isn’t an excuse for putting our wellbeing on the line. So let’s come up with all the reasons that finals week isn’t worth the primetime coverage it gets.

1. You’ve already been through the worst of the semester. For nearly four months, you’ve juggled homework, projects, presentations, interviews and midterms. On top of that, your professors expected you to dutifully attend lectures as if your only other engagement was to catch up on “The Crown.”

Your University turns 180-degrees during finals week. The administration knows these seven days are intimidating. That’s why you’re given hours between exams to study for them. You have time to prepare yourself to succeed, but, more importantly, you’re given time to breathe. No homework, no distractions.

2. You already know everything you’re going to be tested on. Sure, you have to refresh your memory a little bit, but somewhere floating around in your noggin is all the material you need.

Isn’t it comforting to know there won’t be any surprises on your exams this week? It’s a lot easier to recall ideas than to take the time to learn them, and you’ve already taken care of the latter earlier in the semester (see point one above).

3. This week is temporary. It is nowhere near as long as the luxurious winter break you will be rewarded with after you wrap up finals. Even the finals aren’t that fearsome; they are each a small sliver of your class grade, which in itself accounts for only a fraction of your GPA. It’s important to try your best, but hey, the world doesn’t start and stop here.

Just remember to save your spirit. You’ll need it to catch up on “The Crown” in a week.

Tommy is a senior in Engineering.

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