As finals week approaches, students are faced with the pressure of sustaining their grades for the first semester. Study Week often poses the question of whether or not teachers are piling on too much work in preparation for finals.

Many students often complain about Study Week, the week designed as preparation for finals. However, most students end up having to learn new material over the course of this week. It’s often debated whether or not teachers are piling on too much work during Study Week, or commonly known as Dead Week. Ms. Camera, the A.P. Literature teacher and one of the original instigators of Study Week, discusses what the true meaning of this time is.

“This is the college or university model, and everything you should be doing right now should be focused on your finals,” said Camera. “You shouldn’t be learning something that’s going to be relevant to next semester.”

Study Week was designed to help students focus on their final exams and the material they’ve already learned. Although this may be true, teachers still assign homework and other assignments during the course of this week.

“Homework is fine as long as it’s in preparation for the final,” Camera said. “I think the misperception on student’s part is the idea that you can’t have any homework. Well that’s not what it is.”

Study week was designed to support students rather than create more stress. Camera also goes on to explain how before study week, extracurriculars were a huge stress factor on students. Study Week was designed to change that by taking those extracurriculars out of the situation.

“One of the reasons we did it was because kids were feeling this tremendous amount of pressure to go to basketball practice or they were getting called out of class to go speak to guidance,” said Camera.

One of the biggest reasons Study Week was created, was to prepare students for life in College. Madisen Wolfe, a student at Oregon State, explains what her experience was like.

Wolfe stated, “You really don’t have anything due at all and pretty much you can’t learn anything new, so it’s just kind of like a review of everything you’ve learned throughout the term.”

Langley Topper, a student at a university in Chile agreed that although she was studying abroad,  her experience was quite similar.

“Depending on the department you were in, some students didn’t have any classes during Study Week. For two of my classes I had presentations and an essay so we didn’t really have sit down finals so Study Week was really important to me so that was time for me to write these huge essays and work on the presentation,” said Topper.