A whole scheduled week of reading days would improve students’ abilities to prep for final exams. graphic by Conner Maggio

#9: Extend reading days to a week

Two days off before finals is not enough time to write papers and adequately prepare for exams.

We are a major, nationally-ranked private university. TU has high quality professors and claims to be a liberal arts college, and the school therefore has a higher expectation concerning teaching. It adds up that we should be at least on par with both OU and OSU concerning reading days.

The University of Oklahoma gives its student body a week off, and professors at Oklahoma State are not allowed to have assignments be due on the week before finals. With steadily climbing tuition and cost of living on campus, many TU students must work to keep up with payments in addition to the difficult school workload.

As a student of the A&S College, I admit that finals week is not as dire for me as it is for my colleagues in the College of Engineering and Natural Sciences. However, those students, whose grades often rely mostly on midterms and finals, deserve more time to review the material and succeed on cumulative exams that not only determine a grade but transition into further material for the next year.

If we’re still pretending we did not just get lambasted by the Higher Learning Commission and that our academic rigor is as high as the university claims it to be on our website, then we should get more than two days to grapple with exams and papers that determine our final grades.

Post Author: Andrew Noland