Lack of reading days worries U. students

Scheduling issues leave students only one day to study before final exams. Forget about your carefully organized three days of studying -- or catching up on sleep before exams start. With only one reading day before finals this year, cramming is key. This semester, scheduling difficulties forced University administrators to trim the number of reading days -- the time in between the final day of classes and the beginning of exams -- down to a single weekday from the normal two or three. According to Linda Koons, executive assistant to the provost, the crunch is due to the late date this year of Labor Day, the traditional beginning of the school year. In order to schedule the 65 teaching days of the fall term while not having the semester end too close to Christmas, Koons said the only option was to eliminate the reading days and cut a day from fall break, which was also only one day this year. Officials decided it was better to have fewer preparation days than to have exams until Christmas Eve, which would affect those who have to travel far to get home for the holidays. The yearly schedules, organized three years at a time by the Council of Undergraduate Deans, are approved by departments and administrators from across the University, Koons said. But that is little consolation to those students for whom the lack of study time is creating anxiety. "It's pretty ridiculous," College sophomore Matt Anderson said. "In general there have been fewer holidays and less time to prepare." "I have an exam on the first day, and I have to study all this week," Anderson added. "But I also have papers in multiple classes. It's hard to study when I have to still write papers for regular classes." While many students are upset at their loss of study days, others are not affected. College sophomore Yoon Kim said that "people who get work done are still going to get work done." Other students, meanwhile, are finding that their professors are giving them extra time to study. "This entire week I don't have much work, and professors are cancelling classes," said College sophomore Wayne Yi. Other reasons are more simple. "It makes it a little more stressful during finals for me," explained first-year Engineering graduate student Tim Kyin. Even for those students who cram the night before an exam, the reading days will be missed. "I would prefer to have the extra days to relax after class ends," College sophomore Zach Christman said. Students should not worry about this happening every year, however. According to Koons, this is something that happens once every five years due to the scheduling of Labor Day. Next fall, students will have three days -- Tuesday through Thursday -- to prepare for their finals. Many other schools, including Harvard and Princeton universities, avoid the end-of-the-semester crunch by scheduling exams for after winter break, allowing them to combine reading days with a longer vacation. And at Columbia University, students have two reading days, but exams will last until December 23, one day later than finals at Penn. Daily Pennsylvanian staff writer Dana Klinek contributed to this article.