As the arduous task of a 15-week semester winds down, many students are heading into the hellacious week of finals.

For those of you who are in your freshman year, this may be your first taste of true aggravation and stress in college. If you were already feeling the strain of balancing your work and family schedule around school, be prepared.

For those of you who scheduled classes at a specific time because other people – such as employers, babysitters, and transportation providers – needed to plan their lives around yours, hopefully you are in good standing. As if there was some kind of memo floating around through the inboxes of professors all over campus, the last week of our semester will be bombarded with sloppy and inconvenient scheduling.

There is no rational explanation as to why exam times don’t coincide with class schedules. The University should open all-day computer-based tests so that students can take finals at their leisure, on the day on which they would ordinarily have class. For the professors that prefer paper tests, perhaps allow a little bit of extra leeway; allowing certain students to come to their final a little bit late if their last class held them over a bit too long would be a marked improvement.

After 15 weeks of the same hours, day in and day out, most of your teachers will do an about face for finals week. There is no logic in scheduling an 8 a.m. MWF class to have a final at 3 p.m. on a Tuesday afternoon. What are you supposed to tell your boss? Even worse, what if the babysitter you rely on can’t watch the kids?

There are people out there with real lives. If teachers can’t schedule finals during class hours, then they should be sympathetic to the cause and allow exam scheduling to be more flexible, not expect students with obligations to be.

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