Good Morning

There are more people walking about on the Oval at 4 a.m. than you'd probably think.

I found that out this morning while walking home from my good friend's apartment flat-style dorm room after five hours of studying for a final we'll be taking later today.

It was a pleasant walk. Not too cold, birds were chirping. The papers hadn't been delivered to the Lantern paper boxes around campus yet. I took stock of how many lighted windows appeared in the dormitories as I passed them on Woodruff. There were a good many lit windows.

They were probably lit for the same reason that I was walking down a deserted street at 4 a.m.

My friend and I, we didn't come close to making good use of the five hours of studying. To be fair, it should have been six hours of studying but all the coffee houses were full or closing (it was late) and we spent a good chunk of time meandering on High Street.

When we finally got to studying back at his place, we frequently digressed with conversations that had nothing to do with our work. It was fun though. Anything to distract from the anxiety of finals week.

Some day I will hold a degree in my hand and that will be a joyous moment in my life. But even on that day —and perhaps that day more than any other— you or any person will be hard-pressed to convince me of the logic and value of a traditional collegiate examination/final. So much emphasis is placed on a single two-hour period of your life and I don't get it. I realized the madness of finals week as my friend and I neared his dormitory and we stressed about how the result of today's final will impact the rest of our lives.

The thing is, regardless of how my friend and I do on our final later today, I think it should have very little to do with the rest of our lives.

True, tests and classes and quizzes and group projects — these are all ways of measuring a person's ability. Some companies won't ever consider a prospective employee who didn't attend a certain school, take certain classes, and achieve certain grades. And that is fine. Companies like that have probably achieved success in their field by using that hiring formula for many decades. I'm just not sold on how a single mark in a single class can have so much impact.

Maybe I'm being an apologist for me and people like me who may have not always tested well. But come now, think about all the stress you feel during finals week. Think about your roommate freshman year who was crying in the corner of your dorm room because of finals week. Think about how you drank to excess after finals week was over to free yourself from the stress. Think about the all-nighters you pulled to get the job done during finals week so that Mom and Dad would still pay for your books the next quarter.

Is that "real life?"Are those the experiences employers want their prospective employees to have coming out of college?

Maybe that is the expectation.

Either way, I guess we'll all have those experiences to speak of (or suppress deep in our minds) during job interviews. After all, finals week is here again. And here I am, studying whilst birds sing and the sun rises. And this will remain the norm during this and every other finals week from now until I'm clutching that diploma in my hand.

Let's all wish each other luck this week.