By Michael Kim

As the cheery holiday season approaches, students at the University of Maryland hunker down at McKeldin Library to prepare themselves physically and mentally for the stress filled nine-day exam marathon.

In the battle that is exam week, some students say preparation is their best weapon in defending off stress. Anau Babbar, a sophomore neuro-biology major, uses schedule planning to relieve some pressure. 

“Two weeks beforehand, I make a study plan, like exactly what I’m going to study every day for each test. Leading up to the finals I know exactly what I’m doing. I know what I got to do good,” Babbar said. 

Preparation, alongside fulfilling essential needs such as food, sleep and exercise, pave the pathway for success, according to Babbar. But, achieving all of these steps is something that is not possible for some students. 

“I try to do yoga like at least a couple times, and yet there’s no routine,” junior computer science major Isha Angadi said. “We’re losing sleep, we’re not eating, we usually end up spending like 10 to 12 hours in the library or one place at a stretch. No, it’s not very healthy.”

This conversation around the physical and mental stress that comes with finals week has students wondering if the system is effective in evaluating their grades. 

Aysha Qazi, a junior computer science major, believes that the large number of exams in a short period of time is a system that works against students. 

“I think that a lot of students, and I’m one of them, are not good test takers. You can know what you’re doing in the courses, but when it comes time to take the final all these finals pile up. You have one final that you would have done better on if you didn’t have three other finals to study for as well,” said Qazi.

According to students, the university could do a lot more in accommodating for students during this time such as adding additional reading days and spreading tests out more.

“I come from India and the way that we have our finals there is that when we spread it out over three weeks. Having reading weeks would definitely help because we could prioritize our time and try to figure out what classes are more important to study at that time,” said Angadi.

For some Qazi, due to unlucky circumstances, finals week involves an actual race against time. 

“I have my math final and my [computer science] final half an hour apart on the same day,” Qazi said. “I already contacted both of my professors about possibly being able to push one of them and they said no, because university policy is only three finals in one day.”

In order to just make her exam time, Qazi must run from building to building.

“You don’t have time to eat, [and] for students with religious practices, I don’t have time to pray. Like I feel like that’s just stopped at the university, said Qazi. “[The university] should take into account  it’s just overall not good for our mental health to be so stressed out for two straight weeks.”