The semester takes off like a bullet train at the end of August and arrives in December, allowing its travel-weary passengers to crawl off, dragging their mental baggage behind them into finals week. Along the way, students dropped off assignments at each due date and were able to visit their families for a quick holiday. Now, as they hop off the train wondering how they arrived so quickly at the weekend before finals, there is barely enough time to study, sleep, eat and maintain personal sanity. The last couple weeks left them scurrying to finish the final barrage of papers and projects, while still attending hours upon hours of class.

But what if there was another way? A week before the madness of final exams to study without the demands of a regular class schedule — a dead week.

Give us a week to study

If we’re going to be honest with ourselves, we’ll admit that by the time the week before finals rolls around, we’ve already all but checked out. We show up to class to make sure we catch those last details before the exam, but when it comes to the lectures, well, we have other things on our minds — for example, stressing about finals. What if, instead of pushing ourselves hard to the bitter end, we took a dead week before finals to think back on the semester, study for those upcoming finals and let the knowledge we have acquired over the past few months sink in? The end of the year would be more restful and less stressful. Of course, the gods of academia would have to tinker with the semester schedule, perhaps arranging for school to start a week early. But all in all, this solution to the end of the year madness is easy peasy.

Procrastinators’ paradise

This is a great idea for the achievers of the group, but for those students who would rather use the time without classes to go home, sleep or catch up on a favorite television show, this could be detrimental. The procrastinators will continue to procrastinate, and the overachievers will continue to plan ahead regardless of a dead week. Despite the unsound decisions that students may potentially make, our hope with the addition of this probable dead week is that all students would make decisions that would affect the outcome of their finals week in a positive way.

Everyone benefits from a dead week

Whether you’re a person who plans ahead or a procrastinator, a dead week could either be extremely refreshing or the perfect time to put your studies off even longer. All things considered, everyone wins. Those who need the extra space to recharge before finals week get the jump they need, while those who would rather squander their time on Netflix get the “Doctor Who” binge they were looking for. As far as we can tell, a dead week is a win-win.