I am fed up with midterm assignments. Maybe papers aren’t as bad as exams, but still.

As I finish up the last of my midterms, I find myself on the verge of wilting away, like a flower that has been deprived of water for far too long, as any midterm is bound to do to a college student.

Actually, you know what? Scratch that! I’m just tired. Too tired to even wax poetic about how tired I am this time around. I’ve been buried under work for about three weeks now, and it’s taken a toll on my social and academic life alike. I haven’t been able to go out with friends, and I keep neglecting assigned readings and discussion posts to buy extra time to work on midterm assignments. The horror! (It’s November 1st; Halloween should be over already)!

Whoever decided to make a whole month dedicated to quizzes, tests, and essays (that make up significant portions of your grade) should have to suffer the wrath of a drought and forfeit all of their crops. I curse Columbia for not having a real fall break to make any of this feel worthwhile. Honestly, I feel like we could do without this stretch of the academic quarter. Why do we need to prove ourselves at this specific point of the semester anyway? The work we do across the span of the semester should be more important than a single-timed exam in a cramped classroom or on a glitchy Courseworks page! Some of us get test anxiety, you know!

But I digress. It has not been all storms and tempests, as most of my midterm assignments have been papers rather than exams. As an English major, I much prefer this method of professors trying to see what you know, but there are also many other benefits to writing papers. Papers give students more time to plan ahead and work out their ideas without the stress of an imminent countdown looming over their shoulders. Because of this, there’s something more genuine about having to write an essay instead of cranking out a bunch of test answers in an hour; it’s as if your instructor truly wants to see how you think rather than what you can memorize. 

That all should be the case anyway—unless you’re a bit of a procrastinator… like me. In which case, you might find yourself pouring sweat over a dim laptop at 3 am, stressing about your seven-page requirement as the clock ticks down to that 11:59 pm deadline, as the words refuse to move out from your brain and onto the page. Even if you chug a few Monster energy drinks, your brain won’t work any faster, and you might think yourself doomed. But lo and behold, you somehow manage to get the paper finished just before the clock strikes midnight, and as you press the submit button, you promise never to start another essay at the last minute. (This is a lie; your next essay will leave you in similarly dire straits before you even realize it’s happening).

Thus, it raises the question: Are midterm papers really that much better than timed tests if you’re bound to force yourself into a tight deadline anyway? I don’t know the answer to that. However, I do know this: in theory, essays are better than exams. But maybe I have a vendetta against midterms in general, and I know that I’m not alone on that one.

Books, exam, and stressed-out girl via Bwarchives