The only people at ASU who like midterms week are probably the managers of the campus Starbucks. Although the Memorial Union’s brewing hole was out of pumpkin spice Tuesday night, the pilgrimage of groggy students at local coffee haunts has been noticeably somber and dense. So as an open gesture of appreciation, thank you, baristas for serving up the fall fuel, even if sleep-deprived students aren’t the best tippers. Without it, some of us would seriously be walking zombies. At least with coffee, we’re able to muster the artificial awareness we need in order to fool the profs about just how prepared we are for their midterm exam — it’s not like we were procrastinating on our readings until last weekend or anything.
Perhaps the biggest downfall of midterms is that all that procrastinating you did in your classes is now about to come full circle. There are two roads a procrastinator can take: either endure two weeks of little sleep and much coffee consumption or engage in many other distracting non-academic tasks you’ve also been procrastinating on (you know: cleaning the dorm, doing the dishes, or beating your roommate’s high score in Mario Kart.)
It’s actually really endearing just how optimistic professors still are by the time midterms roll around. Those skewed test scores from the first exam will straighten into a nice bell curve and all will be well. And that may be the case if they also hadn’t decided that mid-semester was also the ideal time to begin assigning time-consuming, over-the-top “projects” or papers in addition to regular coursework and expect you to do it all with the utmost focus around the upcoming midterm.
It wouldn’t be such a big deal if all the colleges took a hint from the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, which gave its students a week off. Why should spring be the only time to take a week and go wild? And aren’t law students supposed to never want to leave the stacks? In fact, we highly doubt that the law library isn’t brimming with argyle and satchel-clad mouthpieces, even while they’re supposed to be in sweatpants and giving homage to old “Law and Order” episodes on Hulu.
At least the weather is nice enough that while your brain is breaking a sweat, the rest of you is not melting into those nice purple chairs in Noble Science Library. Those of us in The State Press basement are getting cabin fever, and we’re sure those of you above ground are finding any excuse you can to avoid barricading yourself into a library study room.
On the bright side, the closest things to fall breaks are on their way. There are only six more weekends until Thanksgiving break and less than a month until Veterans Day.
