SGA to propose a plan to ease stress during finals

SGA is working on implementing a new policy that will forbid professors from giving any additional tests during the week of final exams.

The purpose of this new policy is to reduce the already high stress levels, and to have the students focus solely on their final exams.

“SGA is looking at this policy because students often complain about having to study for tests the week before finals,” SGA President Ryan Greene said. “It will help students retain material and not have to cram for a test before finals, and then for another, often cumulative, final a few days later.”

SGA, along with many other students, feels that this will be a very positive change for GCSU. Finals week can be very overwhelming and students appreciate any extra time to study.

“I think it’s a great idea and really hope it gets passed,” junior psychology major Megan Gernazian said. “The underclassmen will really benefit because they don’t know what to expect with college exams. Upperclassmen will benefit because they have more difficult courses and need to do really well in classes having to do with their majors.”

All classes and all professors are different so the new policy will not affect everyone the same. Every student has different ways of preparing for exams, but this policy is meant to make the process easier for the students.

“Every teacher I’ve had since I’ve been here has presented new material on the last day of class,” sophomore pre-med major Kyle Taylor said. “It wasn’t that they gave us an exam immediately before the final, it was just that they tried to cram in the last bit of information right before the final which made it more stressful to study all the material throughout the year.”

Greene recently learned about this new policy from a conference he attended at Georgia Tech. Universities all across the nation use similar policies and are very happy with its outcome. SGA also hopes to get positive feedback from the GCSU faculty and is working hard to satisfy everyone.

“I believe there will be some hesitation from faculty,” Greene said. “SGA has been, and still is working with faculty, staff, and administration to make this policy work in the best interest for students, faculty, staff, and the GCSU campus as a whole.”

Greene said that this new policy will barely affect the academic calendar so faculty should be open to the idea. No major changes to the curriculum will be needed, but it will take time to get familiar with the new policy and to see how truly beneficial it can be.

“I see the reasoning behind this proposal and I do think students should be given ample time to study,” English Department teacher Park Parkison said. “But my guess is that, if this passes, you’ll see a much more stressful semester for students in which they’ll be completing the same number of assignments with less time.”

SGA is still working with multiple parties of GCSU to get ideas, recommendations, and suggestions for this new policy. SGA is trying hard to get this passed quickly, but most likely will be voted on before spring semester.

“We hope to have this come in front of the university voting bodies before the end of the academic year, and probably to be fully implemented in fall of 2009,” Greene said.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Sep 5 2008. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry