The facts: Thanksgiving break is in the past, and students are gearing up for exams. The final week of classes is supposed to allow students a less stressful environment away from major due dates.

Our opinion: professors do not follow this policy and therefore should allow students a comprehensive week of classes set on helping the students review and apply the information of the course.

The time is upon us, with Thanksgiving break gone, the three weeks until Winter vacation seems to overcome students with suspense and anxiety towards the end of their classes, and with exams just around the corner, professors should keep in mind this week will hold many stressors for students.

Recalling an editorial from last semester, “Dead week name change deceives,” Technician‘s editorial staff urged University officials to ensure the effectiveness of the last week of the semester would increase, even with the change in name. This is that professors will not have major assignments due during the last week of classes, prior to exams.

This policy is constantly disregarded and ignored by many professors. The way some get out of this issue is by setting the due date well in advance, so they can claim the students knew about the assignments early on and have no excuse for not getting them done. From this argument, the solution to this dead week policy is to merely get rid of it.

This rule becomes pointless if not followed or enforced by the University, so why have it? By getting rid of this policy professors could make the last week a string of comprehensive classes, which could review and apply the material learned throughout the semester.

This brings up the issue of what professors should do during dead week. If there is no presentation or project due, the class will typically go on introducing new material from the course. This creates the problem of understanding and comprehending this new learned information while retaining and reviewing the previous learned content.

To fix this, professors should not make the last week a cram session for what they haven’t learned yet, but, rather, a review and application week of class used to ensure ultimate success for the students in the course.

Projects and presentations can be geared towards students using what they have learned in the class and putting it to use rather than learn new material that will inevitably end up on the final exam.  

The University could further encourage these types of classes during this last week of instruction by adapting the academic schedule to allow sufficient time for the instructors to teach their material, so this last week may provide an integrated review of the courses’ learning objectives.

However, the ultimate responsibility is up the professor to teach their content in the time slot given to them and aid student in meeting their full potential in their class. Professors should realize the stress they put on their students, and how it is only amplified by teaching new material or having major assignments due during this last week before exams.