2008 Woodie Awards
Crossing Over to the Second Half of the Term
Jami Furo
Issue date: 10/14/05 Section: Life & Times
- Page 1 of 2 next >
Fall break has officially passed. That perilous peak that we call midterm is now behind us, and there is no turning back.
Until this point, you have been testing the waters. You have been summing up your professors and your workload. You have been evaluating how hard your professors are when they grade your papers. You have been analyzing how strict they are on lateness and absence. You have been seeing how much work you can not do and still get away with it.
You may have felt a little lost in a few classes, but that was expected of you. You were new to the class. You might have been new to the material. It was expected that you needed some time to settle in.
But now here you are. You are on the other side of the middle of the term.
The good news is that you should be getting a better grip on what is expected of you in your classes. You are probably starting to understand the material a little better. You are starting to understand what your professors want from you. You are starting to know the workload and how to balance it in your busy schedule.
Unfortunately, it all goes downhill from here. This is the time that professors look at the syllabus and realize that we are way behind and if they are to cover everything that is going to be on your final, they need to pick up the pace.
This realization causes panic for everyone. It panics the professors because they have a lot of material to cover. It panics students because they have a lot of material to learn. Within the next few weeks, the conditions degrade further. You get a paper assignment in all of your classes, and all of the papers are due within a week or two of each other. You have to write them all at the same time. You cannot remember whether or not you are writing your biology paper or your philosophy paper.
Shortly thereafter, you get study guides for your exams. This serves to remind you that you need to actually study for all of your exams.
And that just makes you sad and somewhat nervous.
Until this point, you have been testing the waters. You have been summing up your professors and your workload. You have been evaluating how hard your professors are when they grade your papers. You have been analyzing how strict they are on lateness and absence. You have been seeing how much work you can not do and still get away with it.
You may have felt a little lost in a few classes, but that was expected of you. You were new to the class. You might have been new to the material. It was expected that you needed some time to settle in.
But now here you are. You are on the other side of the middle of the term.
The good news is that you should be getting a better grip on what is expected of you in your classes. You are probably starting to understand the material a little better. You are starting to understand what your professors want from you. You are starting to know the workload and how to balance it in your busy schedule.
Unfortunately, it all goes downhill from here. This is the time that professors look at the syllabus and realize that we are way behind and if they are to cover everything that is going to be on your final, they need to pick up the pace.
This realization causes panic for everyone. It panics the professors because they have a lot of material to cover. It panics students because they have a lot of material to learn. Within the next few weeks, the conditions degrade further. You get a paper assignment in all of your classes, and all of the papers are due within a week or two of each other. You have to write them all at the same time. You cannot remember whether or not you are writing your biology paper or your philosophy paper.
Shortly thereafter, you get study guides for your exams. This serves to remind you that you need to actually study for all of your exams.
And that just makes you sad and somewhat nervous.