Finals begin Monday. Wondering why finals schedules switch between full-week and split-week, the Daily 49er asked Michael Blazey, the interim director of academic facilities, a few questions about the creation of final exam schedules as well as the importance of having one week dedicated to exams.
Q: Why is the schedule different from other semesters?
A: “Because of the Veterans Day holiday and the need to get the right number of days of instruction for each of the days, it means that finals may be scheduled over two weeks. We don’t generally have that problem in the spring because we don’t have the Veteran’s Day holiday to contend with, and so it’s a lot easier to get finals in a complete week, Monday through Saturday, rather than having to split the finals week across two calendar weeks.”
Q: Who comes up with the final exam schedule?
A: “The Academic Calendar Committee is in charge of figuring out the best way to put together the calendar for each semester’s schedule. There are all kinds of variables like the Veterans Day holiday and making sure we have an equal number of instructional days for each semester that will…determine if finals week will be split into two calendar weeks or not. Academic Scheduling tries as much as possible to make sure that no two class periods are scheduled at the same time for exams… It’s really important for academic scheduling to look across the entire schedule of courses for a semester and make sure that no two class periods conflict with each other.”
Q: Why is there a final exam schedule? Why not let students take their final exams during regular class periods like midterms?
A: “Finals have always been traditionally scheduled during a separate week to give everybody closure to the semester and because letting it happen according to the last day of classes students might get into the situation where they would have a lot of finals just in one day.”
Q: How does that benefit students?
A: “I think it’s really a benefit to the students not to get hit with a real crush of finals and projects and everything else on the last day of class.”