Crafting is a very good option too!

Exam period is hard. Professors who let you release your creative side make it easier.

Everyone hates the last few weeks of semester. We’re all writing final papers, studying for exams, and as a result, are deficient in sleep and social time.

So, shout out to the professors who let you do creative final projects as opposed to exams or papers. These projects aren’t necessarily easier, and some semesters, they’re the ones I spend the most time on. There’s something refreshing, however, in doing something different in form and showing the knowledge you’ve acquired in a different way. When you’re writing 3 papers and sitting 3 exams, having a short film or a creative writing piece to do livens up the monotony.

Bwog loves professors that encourage us to think in different ways, convey those thoughts in novel formats. Below is a list of creative final projects that professors at Columbia have used (and some I think would be really cool):

• Following the diet and meditation regime of an Ancient Chinese monk and writing about your experiences
• A group film to show the concepts you’ve learnt in class (can be as unrelated as you wish)
• A rap about the concepts from the class (using music you’ve looked at in class for the beat)
• Poetry written in the style of the poets you studied
• A creative piece written from the perspective of a historical figure studied in class
• An interpretation of ancient poetry using modern techniques
• Computer modeling of a language’s linguistic/phonetic system
• A dance based on the Odyssey

Let’s all shout out professors who let us use our other skills to understand the class’s content more. They’re the real MVP’s. Also, they mean one less in-person exam…

Photo via this arts and crafts blog