It’s fair to assume that at this point in the semester, the majority of students just want to go home. Students are pushing through these last weeks before finals, motivated by the prospect of freedom. The sooner final tests are turned in, the better.

For as long as I’ve been at Binghamton University, it has been common for School of Management (SOM) professors to give final tests during the last class period instead of during exam week. This always worked out. Although it was stressful to have tests with classes still in session, students could go home sooner, making the processes of exam scheduling and moving out easier for everyone else.

This year, the school implemented a policy requiring all final exams to be held during finals week. No one in SOM is precisely sure why this is, and many professors have expressed their disagreement. Some students in other schools within BU complained of “unfairness” as SOM students were permitted to finish sooner, but each method has its pros and cons.

Instead of implementing a University-wide policy on this issue, professors should be able to decide when they want to give their final. There are many professors who would never give up their precious class time for a final exam, especially since they want to give a longer test. There are also many professors who see no reason to have a cumulative final over an hour in time, on a week that is stressful as is.

If professors could decide their own schedule, final exam rescheduling would also decrease. This semester, I am in J-core, the predetermined set of SOM classes for junior year. All SOM students must take these classes together, and many combine them with another SOM class for their major. When the school planned our exam schedule, however, they planned many of our exams at the same time. This affected all of the students, and the exams had to be rescheduled multiple times, since each attempt only conflicted with another SOM class and caused students to need to stay later and later in the week. Some students, who made travel plans, had to find alternatives or cancel, since the exam dates kept changing. Fewer finals during finals week would give more flexibility to the scheduling of finals school-wide.

As an English major and an SOM student, I am accustomed to not having tests during finals week. When I heard the news this semester, I didn’t complain, but merely accepted standardization. However, after looking at the outcomes and evaluating possible scenarios, it is easy to see that this policy change was not for the best. BU must leave the choice to faculty discretion. Professors teach us every day, not administrators. Teachers and students alike work hard throughout the entire semester. By the end, it’s time to let them go home at whatever date suits their classes’ needs best.

– Naomi Barnett is a junior majoring in marketing and English