Scheduling Our Hell

YOU'RE STRESSED, of course. You've got four finals in three days and you haven't done the reading for three of your classes since the midterm. You think you're going to fail them all.

Or maybe you have a final the last possible day of reading period and you would really like a longer intersession. Or your two hardest classes have exams on consecutive days. Or whatever.

The problem you have in common with 99 percent of other Harvard students is that your exam times suck. Our tendency is to accept annoying arrangements like this one because "that's just the way it is." Our submission will probably cause another 356 classes of Harvardians to endure what the first 356 have, but it doesn't have to be that way. There is an alternative to this exam-time hell: self-scheduled finals.

At first, the idea that students might be able to take final exams whenever they want sounds horribly unworkable, but other schools have done it effectively. Mount Holyoke went self-scheduled a while ago, in spite of all the obvious objections, and they haven't had many problems with the new system. Of course, their final exam period is only four days, but the fact that ours is longer would be an asset, as it would strongly enhance the benefits of self-scheduling with little additional harm.

The way such a system could work is that professors would give their final exams in sealed envelopes to the registrar, who would temporarily annex Alumni Hall in Memorial Hall for the handing out and receiving of exams. Students could come in on any week day at any business hour to check out the exam, and then return it a specified amount of time later before 5 p.m.

THERE ARE a number of benefits from self-scheduled exams. First, they would eliminate the arbitrariness and unfairness of the present system. Exam times aren't holy; they are decided by when the registrar can cram what where. The result is that some students get screwed over with multiple exams on the same or consecutive days, or have useless gaps before exams for which they don't need to study. What's even worse is when--like me--you have a four-day intersession while your roommate runs off to Puerto Rico for two weeks of sun. Having students decide when to take exams lets them organize their time in the most useful way and makes it impossible for anyone to complain.

Second, people simply prefer different times to take exams. My earliest class all semester was at 11. Taking a 9:15 test is a feat and a half. And for masochistic science concentrators the 9:00 option is still there.

Less stress is also a plus. It's a truism that sitting in a large room with 570 other stressed-out students is inherently more stressful than being in a library or your own room. Besides, then you don't have to put up with that dork in the row in front of you who keeps sniffling every five seconds, or the premed behind you incessantly clicking her 20-color premed pen.

Finally, there is a benefit for the registrar, TFs and professors: self-scheduled exams eliminate the bogus sick-out. Instead of walking into UHS with a cough, students would need to produce a disease that incapacitates them for two weeks. The 24-hour flu approach to postpone that Math 21a final until March just won't cut it.

OF COURSE, there are problems with self-scheduling, but the ones that come to mind aren't all that formidable. Besides, if Mount Holyoke can do it, so can we.

Teaching fellows might be concerned that grading would be a nightmare with all exams coming in on the last possible day. But, reasonably, we should expect exam returns to be more spaced out than before. And there's nothing wrong with scoring a few exams each day (or piling them up if one so chooses) as long as the curve isn't set until all of them are in.

The potential for mistakes in the transition process of getting exams through the registrar is scary, but not very large. Every time we hand in a midterm or register for classes the bureaucracy has our lives in its hands, but costly errors are infrequent.

STUDENTS with questions about an exam would be out of luck, but they generally are anyway. The average proctor is unable to help and tends to regard any question as an unfair attempt to extract information.

The only real problem with self-scheduled exams is the mess it would create for the registrar. But if we turned our present exam proctors into assistants for the registrar, the office could easily handle the sudden upsurge in work. In fact, net bureaucratic administration might even be reduced, as a proctor who would normally waste three hours watching one class could easily monitor exams for several classes at once.

The most appealing aspect of self-scheduling, however, is not the convenience or fairness or lack of stress, but the fact that it would run on an honor system. The University would have to trust students not to cheat. There is something very Harvardian about an honor code, something many high schools have but that we conspicuously lack. An honor code reflects the belief that students have integrity, that they are as serious about themselves as Harvard is about itself.

Harvard students deserve that kind of trust. The reason most students don't plagiarize or steal library books is not the threat of death by firing squad but the understanding that such behavior is wrong. Even with completely free reign very few students would cheat.

Of course, self-scheduled exams don't provide completely free reign. They still impose strong restrictions. "Collaboration" would be no less detectable than for any other take home assignment. The time restrictions of having to return the exam in a few hours negates whole days spent on questions. Some potential for cheating would arise from students having the ability to look up things they forgot. But this ability is of limited utility for most exams, and could be made less useful for others. Basically, the determined cheater already has numerous options throughout the semester, and the additional opportunity here is only somewhat significant.

The real problem would be the possible leakage of exam questions. But this should be hindered by the idea of the curve: It is not to one's advantage to have others do better. But this area is really the core of an honor code and the prime example of University trust that people will respect the dignity of the academic process.

Ideally, students would rise to the occasion, as they have at other schools. If they don't, the system could be changed back the following semester. With the additional convenience and fairness, and the pleasing idea of an honor code, self-scheduled exams are really worth a try. Nobody is going to complain if we scrap the current nightmare of an exam system.

Don't you wish you were home by now?