The final week of school brings happiness for students ready to travel, spend time with family or friends, and celebrate Christmas, but it has its downsides to it. The last week before Christmas break brings a lot of exams, not just from finals, but tests from all sorts of classes. Students from all grade levels have felt a level of stress from their classes as tests have been given out like paper.
For many students this has caused panic and stress as the end of the semester means the halfway point of the school year. This fear can mostly be seen from juniors at ILS since this is the year that is the most important for their future college decisions. This midway point causes a shocker to most people who are unsatisfied with their grades and this may also serve as a wake up call for many.
Many dedicated and diligent students have even shown their own concerns for the stress implemented and how their concern has grown over their own grades over “not locking in.”.
Junior Teresa Kurishingal explains her thoughts on quarter two and how these final weeks have consumed her with stress: “Quarter two for me felt like exiting my flow state, I had a lot of drops in my grades. I was missing out on a lot of deadlines, but I always find a way to have it work out in the end.”
Teresa has always been a straight A student from her time at ILS, beginning as a freshman with all regular classes to a sophomore with honors classes to a junior with a mix of honors and AP’s. Her opinion is that this quarter has gone by so quickly and the number of exams squished in the same time portion takes up so much time and causes students grades to drop with so much to do at once.
Some other students taking difficult courses feel as if this is achievable even though it seems completely impossible to overcome.
Junior Sophia Salgado talks about her feelings on the difficulty and determination students face: “The final week of school shows that we can be exhausted and determined at the same time.”
Sophia feels like even with all of her AP Pre-Calculus tests, AP U.S History exam, Dual Enrollment Chemistry final, and an English Literature Multiple-Choice Question, that it is still manageable even if you feel drained. You just have to have focus and do your work as you must.
Many other students on campus when asked about their level of stress throughout the final week before Christmas break did not have a lot of commentary to give on it.
Junior Adriel Stanziola gives his brief and concise opinion on his amount of work throughout the week: “Honestly the only word I can use is stressful. These tests have just been a lot.”
His opinion shows that many students have tried to not be consumed with stress and have decided it is best to admit they are stressed, but look at the bright side that Christmas break is coming up soon.
