It's always easy to get wrapped up in the stress and anxiety that comes along with finals. Because of this stress, that is probably why you are on the internet right now instead of studying (just being honest). I'm going to try and shed some light on why finals are important as we grow older.
Finals are a way for a professor to see just what exactly you learned in their class from beginning to end. Even though some people are bad test takers, the final is still one of the most accurate depictions of how you did in the class overall. If you have an A in the class, a good grade on the final is expected. If you're south of C, the test grade might not be the best.
College is our way of learning skills that will carry us into our desired career. Without finals, would anybody take the time to study hard at the end of the semester to review what they learned? Eh, probably not. I love school and I doubt I would. Finals make us work hard so that we know our stuff for the businesses we hope to become apart of later in life. Maybe the psychology 100 course does not seem beneficial now, but when you're a psychologist trying to understand someone's sleep patterns, the course instantly becomes a fantastic tool.
I know this is not what you really want to hear entering into the most stressful week of the year. Trust me, I want it to be over too! But the more we think of our future, the more important studying becomes. Without these special tools we learn in each of our courses, our success in the real world would not be there. This extra boost of studying helps us to remember what we learned, and reminds us of why we learned it.
Everyone has a dream of being the top surgeon, the top accountant, the top athletic trainer, etc, but that would not happen without the reinforcement finals give to us. Instead of looking at them so negatively, maybe we should thank them for preparing us for a not-so-easy real world that is awaiting us just around the corner. Pretty soon bills, kids, and a house will be a stress, not some test that if we study for we can ace. Think about it... once you do it starts to get a little more clear.
Finals are definitely hard. They test us, push us, and make us work hard, but these are all things we will need to do every day in the workforce. It would be too easy to just forget everything we learned in a semester. These tests are so essential to our success because without them, the knowledge would never stick with us. We are forced to sit with a book in front of us, and that is a blessing considering we need this knowledge to make it in the next step of our lives.
