Editorial: Prep week just an excuse for the lazy

Published: Thursday, December 11, 2003

There has been a lot of hoopla regarding the proposal of a Preparatory Week amendment that would bar teachers from introducing new material during the week before finals. This initiative has sparked interest at the University because ASUNM officials claim the student body will use an extra week of study time wisely and responsibly. Consequently, ASUNM senators have created a committee to spearhead this very cause.

Now that the pressure of final exams is impending, Prep Week looks extraordinarily appealing. But, as with any suggested alteration to campus policy, the pros must be weighed objectively against the cons.

Finals are certainly a stressful time loathed by all, but that is the nature of the beast. Finals are essentially disagreeable and abject. Incidentally, proponents of Prep Week claim such a policy will alleviate final exams' encumbrance. This disencumbering effect, however, has yet to be proven.

The idea of a successful Preparatory Week is predicated upon the premise that students will devote five extra days in their entirety to studying. This is unlikely to happen on a mass scale. With an extra week of studying, many students will continue to rationalize putting off work until the last minute, using the common "tomorrow-I'll-buckle-down" excuse. Instead of devoting time to studying, many will use the extra time to pursue extra-curricular activities, such as relaxing downtown with a pint every night.

The beneficial elements of a Prep Week look to work in favor of students because only half of the academic spectrum is being viewed. Devoting an entire week to non-stop studying in which no new material can be taught has a truncating effect on the academic calendar. The majority of UNM classes operate within a 16-week curriculum. Preparatory Week would shrink this to 15 weeks. While this may not be as devastating for English 101 students and dance majors, students in 300 and 400-level classes will suffer from having a week of learning stripped away from them. Thus, 16 weeks of mind-numbing material will be crammed into 15 weeks. This is just slightly unfair. Classes like Organic Chemistry II, Nonlinear Dynamics and Chaos, and Quantum Mechanics should not have to suffer because other students have yet to figure the secret to budgeting their study time.

Finals week is designed to provide students with plenty of time to prepare, and it has been working without extraneous problems for decades, especially now that most teachers opt not to give cumulative exams.

Rather than restructuring finals week, students need to wean themselves off the mother's milk and realize that waiting until the day before the final to prepare works in high school, but not in college. While an extra week of studying will benefit negligent students, it will do nothing for the serious students who stay on top of their studies the entire semester and spread their final studying out over several days. A Prep Week will only benefit procrastinators, and UNM should not cater its policies to favor the lazy and unmotivated.