Before you begin to feebly twiddle an indignant response to my headline you should know: I am a college student, a double major, I work full time, I commute, and I still manage to exercise and have a social life. The lamenting I see from so many of my fellow college students, struggling with what seems to be the hellish ordeal of finals, is frankly pathetic.
Here’s why if you complain about how hard finals are you’re stupid—broken down into the digestible and elementary .gif form (that's jif, like the peanut butter) you all know and love.
First, your final exams are cumulative knowledge of the entire semester.
So if you have been slacking off the entire semester, like many pallid-brained students do, you will obviously be scrambling to recollect and recite previous information. Having to learn everything for the final at the last minute is your own fault.
Second, if your final is not cumulative, then it’s just another exam.
It could be a difficult exam, yes, but that’s why you study and actually read the textbook you sold your soul to buy.
Third, if you are writing a paper then you have no reason to complain.
If you’re only complaint is that you have to write more than one paper in a single day, then you are either not scheduling your time properly or procrastinating. If you add up the hours of cumulative Snapchat stories you’ve watched, rabbit holes of Netflix binging you’ve gone down, or time you’ve spent on Facebook instead of just researching, you would have knocked out that paper faster than I wrote this article.
Fourth, finals are inevitable.
They are not a surprise. While the when they will be and the where you will take your exam may be tentative, you know from the day you get a syllabus that this class will have a final exam, final paper, or some other eccentric grading system. That allows you to plan ahead—way ahead, like months ahead. If you don’t do that, then, as my headline states, you’re stupid.
Fifth, we have a full week to take 8 exams/papers.
Many of us will take multiple exams a day. But if you have been approaching your semester with even the thinnest intellectual assessment, you’ll have more than enough time to write, rewrite, and study.
Finally, (most) Professors give students plenty of help.
There are study sessions, study guides, online tutorials, office hours, old exams, and TAs willing to help you. If you use none of these resources, yet still complain about how difficult the material is or how much you have to study, you’re a dolt and I’m embarrassed to share a campus with you.
I’m sure most of the readers of this piece will never reach this penultimate paragraph, having crumbled under the massive pressure of finals week, indignantly commented on why I am wrong, or lost interest and moved on to another shiny object.
Frankly I wrote this to be incendiary and to tell anyone that if you plan out your life as much as most of you plan out your bar-hopping route, you would easily have enough time to read and re-read your textbooks, consult with professors, meet with study groups, write papers, and still have a life where you can relax. Don’t believe me? Just check my GPA.
