Upper school students need to be more relaxed when it comes to end of year exams. Often, it is the case that the stress will spread like a virus from one person to another. No matter how many reminders the administration gives to students and friends give their peers, many SPA students can’t help but stress out those around them by incessantly talking about exams. Students must be more aware about what they say to those around them in order to mitigate the stress that everyone feels around times of frequent testing. 

“I think every year for finals you can find people who are completely stressed out, people who are worried about finals but don’t talk about it, and those who are just relaxed about the whole thing,” said sophomore Sonja Henze.

“It’s really about who you hang around during finals, and if you want to not be around your normal friends that’s totally fine, you just have to find who’s best for you because there will always be people responding differently,” she added.  

Additionally, the administration should be more aware that many students find the exam testing stressful and assign less work in the days leading up to the tests. Lighter work assignments would make sure the end of 4th quarter is a methodical transition, because ultimately it’s confidence that will make or break a test.

“I think it’s weird how the school tells us to not stress too hard about finals because in the grand scheme of things they don’t mean that much, but then also assign an insane amount of work before our review days,” said junior Joey Bluhm.

“We can’t prepare for exams early to relax ourselves because we have too much other work,” he said.

It’s both the students and the administration who have to work harder to de-stress the community at the end of the year. Students should be more mindful about what they say, because chances are everyone is already feeling stress that doesn’t need to be reiterated. Additionally, the administration should listen more closely to the student body and wean off the homework and project flow sooner so that students have more time to transition into exam mode. Taking these steps would ensure that everybody has as positive and stress-free end of year as possible.