A January Tradition

Early tomorrow morning, hundreds of students will wake up, grab breakfast and trek through the slush to sit for a final exam. It is a ritual that will be repeated tens of thousands of times in the next 10 days, as first-years and seniors, Quad and Mather residents alike find out whether those hours of cramming and concentration will pay off.

Crimson editors have tried time and again to address the challenges of finals season. The essay below, "Beating the System," by Donald Carswell '50, was awarded the Dana Reed Prize for undergraduate writing in 1951; it has been reprinted on this page as a service to readers annually at the start of exam period ever since. In 1962, Carswell's piece provoked one anonymous grader to submit a lengthy letter in an attempt to set the record straight.

It may be the turn of the millennium, but this year as every year, students will try to outwit their teaching fellows and professors, graders will appreciate wit and originality in a huge stack of bluebooks and, by February, the marks will be entered and the academic cycle will begin anew. Indeed, some things never change.