Imagine you’re relaxing by the fire, admiring all the new Christmas presents you just received, enjoying family time, and having an amazing winter break. Right? Wrong. Yes, our winter break is a time to spend with loved ones and maybe get a little extra sleep. However, the bombarding thought of finals coming up directly after is constantly lingering in the back of your mind, and you never truly feel a sense of full peace and tranquility over your break.
I think final exams most definitely should be before Christmas break. I would say that this is a quite reasonable philosophy. It simply just makes sense to end semester one with finals, go on winter break, and then come back to school — new year, new classes, and a fresh start. It just makes sense.
Instead, students spend their break just as focused on school as they typically would on an average week. The fact that finals are right around the corner defeats the purpose of break.
If finals were to be before Christmas break, our break would serve as a reward. This is motivating and could honestly be very beneficial for students. As a junior, I think back to how I felt emotionally the week or two leading up to Christmas break last year. I was honestly super unmotivated and dreading the thought of having to do so much preparing and studying over break. My mindset was “Eh, I’ll just study a lot over break. Finals aren’t for a few weeks.” I’m sure you can imagine how that played out. Break rolled around and the studying was minimal. Then I ended up cramming in my studying the last few days of break and the first few days back. It made for a very stressful few weeks right around the holidays.
I’m sure that teachers would appreciate having finals before break just as much as students would, as they too put a lot of planning and preparation into finals week. We as students tend to forget teachers also have lives outside of school. Finals before break would allow them to also enjoy the peace and comfort of their own home and family.
Though it might throw off the scheduling of the school year slightly, I overall think that there are more pros than cons to this idea. With finals before Christmas break, students would be able to fully enjoy their time at home, and would look forward to coming back to school and entering a new semester.