The few week period between Thanksgiving and winter break is often dreaded by students due to immense workload and first semester finals. This year, Thanksgiving was even later in the month, therefore resulting in the only three and a half week period before students leave again. With the shorter time, has also come increased levels of stress amongst the school. Students bond over the general anxiety formed towards final grades and GPA results, frequently relating to the same emotions. 

“There is more pressure because it’s junior year, so we’re all thinking about college and our grades this year really matter,” said Diya Gupta (11). 

This sentiment of Junior year being the most academically challenging is shared amongst the school. Grades and academic standing are highly anticipated for the year. Classes are often at a high level of difficulty and there is a focus on prepping for college applications and scholarship opportunities. While all students can feel the stress of the weeks between the holidays, emotions are more heightened for upperclassmen. 

“It feels really long because all I want to do is get to winter break but finals come up so fast and I feel like there’s not enough time to study since we’re still learning lessons five days before,” said Abby Burton (12).

There is disagreement between students and faculty on whether this critical time period feels like it moves very quickly, or couldn’t be slower. The anticipation of winter break and the holidays can result in the days feeling long and endless. However, with this year’s already shortened “in-between” period, students and faculty feel that there is an even more intense rush to cram in new material before the final exam. Students often feel there is not enough time to complete the multiple projects or homework, while also balancing seasonal fun. This difficult balance tends to result in habits of procrastination, which is always a precursor to the tension felt during finals week. 

“It’s a variety of factors that cause students to be stressed at the end. Dealing with finals is a piece, but it’s also that a lot of kids are trying to figure out how to get all of their work from the semester done. Then you’ve got high end students that are trying to figure out how to maintain or achieve a grade,” said AP US History teacher, Paul Williams.

There are multiple factors that contribute to the emotions of the last weeks of the semester, and not all of them are due to just final exams. Every year it is becoming less and less expected for teachers to assign finals that heavily impact students’ grades. It depends on each class, but some students might feel that they need to worry more about turning in late assignments than studying for exams. The group of academic students have earned impressive grades, but feel the stress to keep those or achieve an even higher grade.