LOS ALAMITOS, CA — As finals week approaches, there are many mixed emotions. Being a senior, I’ve learned a few things about what I should do during the days leading up to finals. However, this being my second to last finals week, I now look at finals from a different perspective than when I was a freshman. 

As a freshman, one of the things I was unprepared for was finals. Although they are generally just longer tests worth more in the grade book, they cover the entire semester’s worth of information in some subjects. In classes like math or biology, you’re tested on everything you were taught from the first lesson. But, as we all know, the moment you are done taking the unit test, all of the information you memorized leaves your brain. This makes reviewing for finals difficult because you can’t recall certain things from September. 

When they said senior year would be the easiest, they really weren’t lying. The workload is relatively the same for some classes, but what has surprised me the most is how I feel going into finals week. Instead of being anxious about how it could impact my grade or stressed and scrambling to cram as much information as humanly possible, I have yet to do any review. I’ve been made entirely aware of what my finals will look like, and yet, I haven’t begun studying. Maybe it’s the fact that pass or fail, my grades will remain the same. Or maybe it’s that, overall, I care less about finals as a whole, a sentiment I’m sure many seniors share.  

I have spent significantly less time preparing for finals compared to my freshman year. I no longer feel an inherent need to study every single night leading up to my finals. However, thinking about it now, not feeling stressed is weird. I’ve spent the last three years of high school panicking two weeks out of every school year prepping for finals. 

During freshman year, I worried as I reviewed the relationship between cytoplasm and chloroplast, which I have now forgotten. I stayed up late reviewing the pathway in which air enters your lungs and reading Elie Wiesel’s “Night” during my sophomore year. My junior year, I assessed the deeper meaning of “The Scarlet Letter” to prepare for my AP Lang final. But this year, the stress I once braced myself for isn’t there. I haven’t even reviewed “si” clauses for my French final and I feel oddly relaxed. 

I know for a fact that my being this calm is because my grades won’t be greatly impacted by my scores. But it’s also nice that as a senior I don’t feel too stressed. I’ve spent the last three years doing it, so I think it’s time for underclassmen to start feeling the pressure.