Pity the members of Professor Jennifer Swift’s organic chemistry class. While the majority of campus will be slumbering away at 9 a.m. on December 12, they’ll be taking one of the hardest tests of their collegiate careers.
The worst part? Not counting the weekend—because not having class on Saturday and Sunday is a right, not a privilege—they will have had just two study days to prepare.
Two days simply aren’t enough time for many students to adequately prepare for their exams. Georgetown should push back or compress its exam schedule to give students the week of study days they need.
Georgetown wouldn’t be alone in switching to a longer study period. Students at Yale, for example, enjoy a week of study days, an arrangement that Daria Vanderveer, an Associate Registrar at Yale, said most students find satisfactory.
“There are even some deans on campus that say a week isn’t enough to get ready for exams,” she said. The downside is that Yale’s exams last until December 22, two days later than Georgetown’s. However, Yale’s faculty have the option of offering an additional time slot for their later exams, Vanderveer said, allowing many students to go home early.
Concessions would have to be made to give students three more study days. Extending the exam period by a day or two could be softened by flexibility similar to Yale’s that would allow Georgetown professors to offer alternate times for later exams.
Additionally, shortening the exam schedule by a day or two would require narrowing the criteria for what constitutes a conflict, according to University Registrar John Q. Pierce. Either option would be a worthy trade-off for the added study days. Georgetown need not go as far as schools like Harvard or Princeton, both of which offer lengthy study periods—and finals after Christmas break.
But, especially since Georgetown doesn’t have the fall break that many other universities offer, the administration should give students a week of study days to catch up and prepare for finals. For the members of Professor Swift’s orgo class, it’s the least we can do.
