If there's one thing I've learned in almost two years of college, it's that life is just not fair.
Tests and quizzes all occur in one week. People you make plans with flake out at the last minute. The lousiest boyfriends continue to defy logic and find girlfriends. "Time conflict" becomes your most-used phrase.
One of the many little annoyances of college life is Saturday finals - but those appear to be out the door.
Recently, Student Government Association and University Senate voted to eliminate Saturday finals, beginning with Fall Semester 2007. Surely, this news sparked celebration campus-wide as many now get to go home a day earlier for Winter Break.
But was it worth the compromise?
After all, Fall Break is now only one day off, instead of two, and it goes from Friday to Sunday instead of the usual Saturday to Tuesday. Students who live more than just a few hours from Ball State might elect not to go home for just the one extra day. And that reduced break probably won't help the growing cases of burnout that seem to arise around Finals Week.
Another compromise is that students will have to attend their Friday classes on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving break, instead of going to their Tuesday classes. The intention was to even out the amount of class sessions on those days - but it's more likely those "Fruesday" classes will just be skipped. Also, in many cases, students have the exact same class schedules on Mondays as they do on Fridays, and who wants to go to the same class three days in a row?
Now, granted, most students are probably willing to make these concessions to save the sacred weekend after Finals Week. Then again, there is professor of finance and insurance Terry Zivney, who said in the March 31 edition of the Daily News: "I believe there are a number of better alternatives [for eliminating Saturday finals], and in my mind this is the worst of all possibilities."
One of those absurdly easy alternatives is to pull the Labor Day break. Indiana colleges are not required to take a day off on Labor Day, and Ball State students, having just begun Fall Semester two weeks before, are in no need of one day of break so soon. Going to those classes would fulfill the required day, ending Saturday finals without sacrificing a day of Fall Break and without causing the proposed "Fruesday," which is likely to just muddy things up even worse.
Quick survey: Who ever does anything important with the Labor Day weekend? Who could do without it if meant dropping Saturday finals? Because if any of you are actually scheduling things specifically for Labor Day, I seem to have missed it while walking past all the people who remain on campus for that weekend.
As I stated in the introduction, I have no problem with ridding ourselves of Saturday finals -¡-¡- it's a great idea. It just seems there should be an easier way of doing it than creating "Fruesday," which will likely just induce more students to skip classes on the last day before Thanksgiving break.
Yes, a lot of things are unfair in life. Bad things happen all at once. Bad people are made to be happy. And Saturday finals are sometimes a fact of life. Unfortunately, when trying to get rid of one of life's little annoyances, the university's administration seems to have created a mountain out of a molehill.
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