Katelyn Freil
News Editor
This year led to many big changes for me, including a new job and family and friends moving away, which has in turn led me to realize this: I am a grown-up.

When I was young, I always imagined growing up, becoming a veterinarian and living in a big house with my best friends. The first part was doomed when I realized working as a vet meant more than putting Band-Aids on paws and feeding patients treats to make them feel better.

I hoped that the second part –– while it wouldn’t be exactly like that –– would still be partially true, with us all living relatively close and still seeing each other on a regular basis. This year changed that dream as well. I may not be happy about it, but I have realized that moving and growing a part is sometimes the way of life.

My friends and family leaving was not the only thing that made me have this epiphany. My position as news editor at the Buchtelite has also helped me gain knowledge, experience and responsibility.

What is more important about this experience is that I have met some of the best people here. While most of us will be parting ways and will be not coming back next year, I won’t forget how much fun we had throughout a year of production nights and how much I learned from the talented, hard-working and thoughtful staff.

I know now that grown-up life cannot be fixed by simply putting a Band-Aid over a wound, and is not at all as easy as the 10-year-old me hoped it would be.

With this new realization comes fear and nerves, but also excitement and joy. I look forward to starting my senior year and cannot wait to see where grown-up me goes in life.

All the best to my friends at the Buchtelite and thank you for a wonderful year.

Abigail Chaff
Opinion Editor
This past year has been the most difficult year in all 22 I’ve had. To be honest, it hasn’t really gotten any better. I keep waiting to step out this growth phase and finally know who I am, but that’s not happening. I’m not going to write a happy little paragraph about how much I love The University of Akron and how, even through the bad times, this year was great. This year sucked.

I have no idea who I am or what I want out of life. I think my major is stupid; I would honestly be happy never working another day in my life. I would live like a cat and nap all day in the sun.

Its difficult to figure out how to live your life when you don’t know who you are. It’s easy figuring it out when your 15 or 16. But then 22 rolls around and you start to feel like you should be doing what everyone else is doing, whatever it is that everyone else is doing.

This year I hurt a lot of people. This year I decided to put myself first, and then found out that was wrong, too.

Through it all, I must say, the Buchtelite were always there for me. We become a little unit, and their support meant more to me than any of them know.

Maybe next year will be better, maybe it won’t. Maybe I’ll still be pissed off tomorrow. I’ll probably end up alone.

The one thing I did take away from this year is never quit. Even when you want to quit, you can’t. It may take longer than you want. But it can’t be bad forever. No matter how many bad decisions you make, and how many people leave you, 2012 was worse.

Oh, and Kevin Kane.

Beau Brown
Arts & Life Editor
“People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.” ––Ralph Waldo Emerson

I’ve gained a lot of life lessons throughout this year and I have to owe it to the Buchtelite. More specifically, the people I work with. So to the Buchtelite team, I give my thanks. You guys have no idea how much you have influenced my life and I couldn’t have chosen a better team to work with.

Abigail, you taught me that I shouldn’t be afraid to voice my opinions whenever I feel like it’s necessary.

Katelyn, you taught me that no matter what I go through, I should always carry a smile on my face.
Alex, you taught me that I don’t have to worry about what other people think because people will love me for me.

Andrew, you taught me that I should speak less and listen more. Because not enough people do that anymore. Katie, you taught me that I am also someone who commits the moral crime of stereotyping, and that I should be more understanding of those who have done me wrong in the past.

Matt Balsinger, you taught me that faith is just as strong as science. Matt Sympson, you taught me that I can make straight men not feel uncomfortable. Kara, you taught me that everyone has their insecurities, but that’s what makes everyone alike.

Heather, you have helped me grow enormously into a better person: one who is more capable of setting goals and accomplishing them, one who doesn’t give up, and one who, instead of being scared of failure, should face struggles with their head held high. Because of you, I feel more confident in my abilities to accomplish what I set my mind to.

Thank you guys, so much.

Alex Didato
Copy Editor
During my four years at Akron, I have participated in groups such as WZIP and the Buchtelite, and have served as a Resident Assistant in the halls for three years.

From my time spent within these organizations and positions, I’ve found that I have a tendency to over-involve myself, and take the phrase “over-achiever,” to a whole new level.

However, I’ve now learned what is feasible for me to take on, and in the process, have learned more about my leadership style, work habits and how my temperament responds to certain stressors and stimuli.

I’ve made the most incredible friendships within my involvements, and strongly believe I have found my lifelong friends. If I had one piece of advice for incoming and returning students, it’s to get involved –– find what makes you passionate. What is it that makes you excited? What group or organization would you find yourself being proud to call yourself a member of?

Being and staying involved in student groups throughout one’s college career increases the chances of retention and successfully reaching graduation; plus, you are guaranteed to make some friendships of a lifetime.

Despite not having much of a social life, or having the time to experience the “crazy college life,” I wouldn’t trade the time
I’ve spent invested in my involvements and with the people I’ve met for anything.

Kara Hemphill
Copy Editor
“I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.” –Sylvia Plath

For me, this school year was full of ups and downs. I had a tough fall –– not with classes –– but with personal issues. Lacking motivation for anything caused me to neglect a lot of opportunities that could have been wonderful. I was afraid they would go wrong, or that it wasn’t what I really wanted or needed to do. And so I let them die.

I’ve come to realize, though, that it’s never too late to turn things around, pay attention to those things you’ve been neglecting, and do what is truly right for you. I’ve learned to trust myself more; to listen to the advice of others while still being true to what I feel.

Happiness can’t be achieved if you live your life according to the standards of others. Striving for perfection can yield good results on whatever you’re working on, but in my experience, perfectionism only leads to unhappiness and dissatisfaction.

This spring was amazing for me because I made a lot of new friends in and out of class, and I realized that I still have the power to do everything I want to do and more. I pursued a lot of great opportunities and, most importantly, I learned to take care of myself while balancing my commitments.

Sometimes you just have to take a bite out of a fig and see where it takes you.

Katie Soinski
Page Designer
This school year has been absolutely insane. Between studio art classes, general education requirements, portfolio reviews and learning new things at the Buchtelite each week, my knowledge and stress levels have rose beyond belief.

My schedule has been crazy busy, but I’ve gotten it down to a science. Life is moving faster these days, but that definitely doesn’t mean it’s getting any less enjoyable.

Amidst the chaos of these last two semesters, I’ve met some pretty amazing people. I’ve worked, grown and laughed with my the Buchtelite team, been through some grueling yet rewarding projects with my fellow design majors, and celebrated many successes with those I’ve gotten close to.

The highlight of my junior year came unexpectedly though. The very first day of the school year also ushered in an incredible relationship with my now boyfriend of six months. I never could have made it through this year without him constantly encouraging and supporting me. And it doesn’t hurt that he, too, is a graphic design major and can honestly critique my work and help me grow.

The most useful lesson learned this year was how to prioritize my life better and make the most of every opportunity. As I am taking these exciting yet scary steps into adulthood, I am realizing more and more just how chaotic life can be, but how focusing on what truly matters is the only way to keep your composure and make
it through.

Letting go and just loving the life I have and those involved in it is so important; and I hope to keep this mindset as I embark on my even crazier senior year.

Andrew Krigline
Page Designer
Let me start this by saying it plain and simple, I’m a geek. I have two computers, one of which I built, and I rarely do anything not on a computer. I’m also a graphic design major, so this is somewhat expected.

This school year has shown me a lot about people. I’ve gotten to know more of my fellow design majors, and I’ve grown closer to my floor-mates here in the dorms. Interpersonal relationships are fascinating, but I can see that analyzing them isn’t the way to go.

Flexibility is king, just roll with the punches and take things as they come at you. Keep your friends close, the friendships you form now can last a lifetime.

Building bridges is far more difficult than burning them, but burning bridges doesn’t help anyone. A hostile environment is not an environment conducive to work. Seeing things from the other side of the fence makes a lot of things clear. People don’t understand metaphors.

Above all else, consume copious amounts of endorphins, and even more caffeine. That is the Krigline Key to a Successful Life.

Judgment day is coming: the time you gather your strength, muster your materials and ingest copious amounts of coffee.

This unholy fury is one of many ways man has devised to demoralize his future competition. I feel it’s a cop-out to test your knowledge and mastery of a subject based on memorizing more of the textbook. Life never came with a textbook, but its tests are every single day. In a perfect world there shouldn’t be a master test.

One’s worth to society shouldn’t be summed up in a GPA or a score on a paper. It comes from the earned respect of peers, the love of friends and family, and the little inherent things you can’t learn in a classroom. I sound like a hokey Robin Williams, but this is true.

The existing structure of weighing a student’s worth is crap; shaping your future is a number. It’s a leftover from the factory lifestyle: educating the middle class enough to work in factories. Only now, the institutes are factories manufacturing students. I bet you could even imagine your time in college as a conveyor belt of classes; unless you were too drunk to remember, of course.

Now, rather than being known by word-of-mouth and a testimony of experiences, you’re judged by multiple choices and essays.

In this one chance you could literally make or break your future: A semester’s worth of hard work is able to be undone by a sleepless night of procrastination and video games.

Oh, those sweet feelings of carelessness.

That reminds me of what lies ahead. Just beyond the academic Armageddon is the sweetness of summer. I’ve come to know summer –– not just for its freedom –– but for the changes it brings upon me.

I go through more changes and grow more as a person in the summer. It’s something like self-help on steroids. I find myself in critical situations that push me to my limits.

Summer’s like an island in an ocean or an oasis in a desert. It’s the time where I truly shine; its real life. Stay behind the walls of academia and you’ll forget what you went away to learn for.

Unless there’s some major social change, we’ll have to consider finals as here to stay. They aren’t fun, but most things worthwhile in life aren’t.

On that note, I urge you to go that extra mile: bunker down, excommunicate yourself, do whatever necessary to ensure your head stays above water. Invest in the now; just because the system is flawed and full of crap doesn’t entail procrastination. Do the hard work now, if for nothing else, because your future is worth it.

In a related story, I met my future self. I use that term loosely, as he introduced himself by punching me in the face.

For the past couple of weeks, my attention span has degenerated to little more than that of a gnat. When I think of my brain lately, I am often reminded of eggs in a frying pan and how closely they resemble the effects of crack. Luckily, I don’t need narcotics to sizzle my creative juices: I just need Chaucer.

So, when I look at ‘ermahgerd’ memes online, during some coveted downtime, the latest quips inevitably transform into Middle English prose or the underlying symbolism surrounding Death in “The Pardonner’s Tale.” Despite my methamphetamine eyesight, reading comprehension is proving a task too difficult; though I am becoming fluent in gibberish.

Much of what I try to focus on eventually turns into indiscernible babble. It’s as if the influx of final papers and exams have chased away all of my cognitive processes. I’m certain if I move my head from side to side, the distinct sound of brain matter can be heard sloshing around inside my temple. It should figure that, when I need my brain the most, it catches the quickest bus to a quaint little B&B in the village of Ermahgerd.

On Friday, I installed some updates on my rather insistent laptop, Genevieve. However, as I was on a time crunch at work, I opted to postpone the required restart, and sternly instructed her to “remind me later.” When I got home from work, I decided to get back into this godforsaken Chaucer paper.

This encompassed three hours of assaulting Genevieve’s keyboard — rewriting my neoteric drivel into something more scholarly ­— and lambasting the pages for not accumulating faster. It was when the vein in my forehead expanded into a new timezone that I retreated from Genevieve’s needy clutches and took a 10-minute respite.

Obviously, she became angry with me. And, like a petulant child, she completely shut down. With some tender coaxing, though, she eventually came around to being turned on. Well, more accurately, I sort of forced the issue; but we’re going through a nasty separation, and I can’t admit dominance.

I should have known better than to neglect a megalomaniac like Genevieve. From the moment I bought her, I knew there was something wrong with her wiring. And, so it was that she conspired with all of her little chips — who all jumped on board to harp at me for having commitment issues with a very succinct “unable to restore file.”

So, that damn medieval paper was, well, history. That’s what I get for having an affair with the word processor.

One would think, given that Genevieve’s hard drive has more RPMs than Veronica (my car), she’d be less likely to experience such flippant affirmation issues. But, so it goes: Genevieve’s puerile antics won out.

Luckily, however, the word processor decided to continue our affair, and the two of us spent 10 romantic hours on Saturday rewriting all that was lost from that paper. This time, though, I was smart and didn’t let on that I was also exercising other non-platonic interludes with Red Bull and Jimi Hendrix.

Unfortunately, lack of sleep, bursts of caffeine and catchy lyrics don’t comprise very convincing papers. I’m sure my professor will appreciate reading how Chaucer’s Pardonner and his “Foxy Lady” walked “All Along the Watchtower” in the “Purple Haze,” but there you have it.

My next laptop will be different: something less needy. I’ve decided I’ll name it MacGyver with the hope that my cheeky clairvoyance will resolve any future issues by using a paperclip and a turkey baster. For now, my affair with the word processor continues on in the wretched stanzas of metaphor-latent prattle. I hear Genevieve is seeing a very nice blogger.

With the end of the semester fast approaching, going to class gets harder by the day. It’s difficult to concentrate on school when there are three months of glorious freedom looming – or at least, as close to freedom as a college student can get.

Maybe it’s because most of my summer plans are up in the air at this point, but I can’t help but feel a tinge of melancholy that the semester is ending. I know that’s weird, but this isn’t the first time that I’ve felt something other than pure elation at the end of a semester.

Somehow the spring semester’s end always seems a little more final than the fall’s. Maybe it’s the longer break, or the fact that it marks the end of another full school year.

During the semester, I always get into a comfortable little routine. I know my classmates, my professors, and, for the most part, what is expected of me in my courses.

But every 15 weeks, that routine is disrupted with a new set of classes, which I have usually scheduled with much trepidation and reluctance. And every 15 weeks I ask myself the same set of questions: How will this semester turn out? Will it wreck my GPA? Will I see my friends enough? Most importantly, when will I eat lunch?

Most semesters turn out better than I anticipate, which I suppose is a hint that I should be a bit more optimistic. Still, I hate to leave a good thing behind when they’re over, taking with me the knowledge that I will soon plunge into the great unknown of fall 2013.

And while I’m not that close to graduation, every semester that passes also brings me closer to the Great Great Unknown –– the unknown that is so unknown it needs two “greats” and capital letters.

I’m talking, of course, about the world of full-time work.

It’s no secret that the economy isn’t so great right now. I have no idea where it will be in two years, let alone where I’ll be. Heck, I don’t even know where I want to be. I selfishly hope that most people share this sentiment with me. We may put up a façade of confidence, but inside, I know I’ll be freaking out until I figure out what I want to do with my life.

In other words, I’ll probably be freaking out until the day I die.

I obviously have the unfortunate tendency to look toward the future while completely neglecting to live in the moment. As you might have noticed, astute reader, this article has quickly jumped from “summer 2013” to “fall 2013” to “the rest of my life.”

Much like my summer, the rest of my life is up in the air –– but at least I’m not alone in that.

I guess what I’m saying is, the spring semester seems to be a natural time to reflect: For better or for worse. The end of classes tends to remind me that time is moving forward. Worrying about the future is the last thing I want to be doing when I should be gearing up for summer, but that’s life I suppose.

When I was a little girl, I played “show me yours and I’ll show you mine” with another little girl from up the street. I didn’t know what playing this meant to adults; I just knew that I was curious if the other little girl looked like me.

But, being the good little girl she was, she told her mommy, who then called my mommy, and I was no longer allowed to play
with the little girl from up the street.

After that, I kept my tiny curiosities to myself…for a spell. I’d still play with the kids from my development: usually “house” or some derivative of that age-old game where we innocently reenact the “Honey, I’m home” of our parents, guessing at what it’s like to be adults.

I always played the “man” of the house, either by choice or unanimous designation. I’m not sure why, but it appealed to me more than acting like the little woman while wearing one of my mother’s old smocks or aprons.

This same character trait also translated outside of make-believe games and anecdotes. In school, I would always try to be the tough one –– tougher than the other little boys. I had a point to make. I’d wrestle with the only little boy who was my age from down the street, just so I could prove that I was stronger and, perhaps, more manly than he was.

That didn’t go over too well, though, because his mother thought we were doing something else entirely. And then I was no longer allowed to play with the little boy from down the street.

I didn’t have many friends. My personality was just weird, and it was obvious to everyone else that no matter what I did or said, I was just trying too hard: playing up some facade that they could all see through.

I had sporadic friendships that usually only lasted through the summer because once school began again, it was unsavory to associate with the messed up kid.

There was one girl, however, who did pique my inquisitive nature again when I was a preteen. She was blonde, rowdy and a blast to play with. She was a bit of a tomboy, like me, and we got along well.

I remember, during one sleep-over, wishing she’d kiss me. I spent the night in a pull-out bed wondering if she’d mock me for asking, or –– gasp! –– acquiesce.

Since she’d never been friendly to me during school, I was fairly sure it’d be the former, and then I’d have provided fuel for another bout of cruelty by my classmates. She was the first in a long line of female friendships in which I wished there could be more.

It wasn’t just girls, though, who caught my eye. It was boys, too –– although I wasn’t as hesitant to commandeer a less platonic relationship with them. In fact, most partnerships I’d engaged in began with my typical peacock dance of asserting that I was the stronger, tougher, more aggressive of our pairing.

The quickest way to a boy’s heart is definitely making him feel inferior. In fact, I still do that when I’m interested in a guy. The difference now, though, is that I am no longer physical about it.

I realized in my late teens that my dream jobs of being a bouncer or a secret agent would never come to fruition. My height peaked at five feet, so I would always be less of a peacock and more of a chicken hawk.

Foghorn Leghorn will forever evade me. Once I resolved myself to the fact that a Rottweiler will never take a yapping Chihuahua seriously, I resorted to a different method of superior intimidation: verbal pugilism.

In fact, my current partner and I amalgamated after a lengthy session of “Who can be the biggest jerk-off.” I still maintain that I won.

But, have I? Even though I’ve had a few actual relationships with women, they’ve never been long-term. I grew up in the ‘80s and ‘90s, so my tastes were largely frowned upon.

Family members would refer to me as a dyke; my mother would heatedly insist that my female interest was a phase; my father was simply elated because it meant no penises were going anywhere near my baby maker.

And my classmates, well, it should come as no surprise that whenever a radio was available in 1995, they’d always turn on Jill Sobule’s “I Kissed A Girl” and sing it loudly, replacing “I” with my name. It didn’t have the same ring to it, though.

Twenty years later, a lot of headway has been made in orientation equality, but not enough. For some reason, a lot of people maintain that the U.S. is one of the forerunners in freedom and equal rights, but it’s actually a far cry from a lot of other countries.

I believe this is because a good deal of the majority (white heterosexuals) think there are more important issues in our country that require attention.

In fact, these same people continually snub Obama for all of his civil rights changes over the past four years. We may be near the top of the food chain in terms of obesity, technology and pop-culture icons, but we are still slow to embrace equality.

Granted, the stigma of being within the subjective confines of a LGBTQ role aren’t as harsh as they were when I was initially filled with budding curiosity, but the mindset still isn’t where it needs to be.

Furthermore, the sometime-notion that it’s just a bunch of older Christian conservatives who are against this community is really false, on a surprising level.

What a shock it was to find out during my marriage that my ex-husband was one such bigot, and he was a Pagan. It made for a very difficult relationship, especially since he was absolutely disgusted by that aspect of my orientation.

Those “other” people aren’t entirely to blame, however. I, too, am a practicing hypocrite because of my involvement with a private organization that bans homosexuals.

True, my orientation wouldn’t “adversely” affect the individuals to whom I am teaching various skills, but I am still propagating the discrimination by even being associated with them.

Admittedly, I am on and off the fence every year when it comes time to renew my membership, simply because I’m undecided whether my beliefs should negatively affect the youths I teach by removing myself from the organization entirely.

In fairness, though, my leaving would not impact them at all, so it’s probably out of simple defiance that I remain –– or maybe selfishness.

Perhaps it is this hypocrisy that keeps the U.S. off that list of 12 other countries that have embraced marriage equality. But, think about it: 12 countries out of 196 (last I checked). Twelve. The most recent country being France that, amidst a scarily ruthless slew of violence, prevailed for their population. A country that a lot of Americans I know consider to be filled with nothing but arrogant, rude winos.

In all likelihood, our incessant need to stereotype, to apply a label for everything, is our biggest failing of all. It’s how we digest difference, and how we perpetuate the vitriol that surrounds anyone — not just the LGBTQs — to the point that an American notion of equality is utterly laughable.

Do people still call me a dyke? No. Do I still hear bigoted utterances of such a derogatory nature such that, in the past, I’ve considered quitting my job? Yes. Did I? No. Will I be removed from the aforementioned organization after publishing this? Probably.

See? There’s still a lot of work to do. But, in the interim, merci beaucoup, France!

Finding a roommate is exciting, but can quickly turn into horror. With everything else the end of spring semester brings, finding a new roommate for next fall is another item on many students’ to-do list.

Asking these questions when seeking a potential roommate will eliminate the extremes. Rolling into my fourth year of experience in this field has taught me what to ask future roommates to stop the terror before it happens.

1. How do you feel about a clean apartment/house?

I have lived with girls, guys and at
times a mix of the two. Both of these species are equally messy, and I had to find out the hard way. If you don’t mind sitting next to a McDonald’s bag of old, smelly food while watching TV, then skip this question.

2. What is your social life like?

A student with a pre-med major who is involved with eight different clubs, and president of most of them, is not someone who can live with a social butterfly having weekly get-togethers involving three cases of Natty Light. Agree on social gatherings and noise levels at the house before your study time turns into Drake shaking your walls for five hours a night.

3. Do you have a job?

If you plan to pay the bills, it is necessary your roommate has a source of financial income. If not a job, a parent’s bank account will work too. Paying for the amenities alone on a college budget, especially when beer money comes first, is not doable.

4. Have you had a roommate before?

It is an advantage if your roommate has past experience with sharing space. It is a red flag if they have seven
different roommates in one year. Find out their baggage.

5. What type of furniture do you have?

If your potential roommate has only a bed and dresser you will need to discuss finding couches, tables and chairs. You will need to find an affordable price you can both spend on necessary items. If the potential roommate comes with a huge flat screen TV, two couches and multiple furnishings, they are a rare find in college. Live with them.

6. Are you a night owl or a morning bird?

If you are most active and loud at night, you must find someone who can adapt to that schedule. Someone who has Biology at 8 a.m. every Tuesday will not want you blaring music and having friends over until late Monday night. If it is too late when you realize your schedules are opposites, thankfully there is ZzzQuil and coffee.

Now that you know the answers to these questions, ask yourself whether or not you can tolerate the answers. If the answer includes
an enormous TV for your living space, you may have to compromise living with the piles of dirty dishes in your kitchen.

With the semester ending soon and finals quickly approaching, many students are under a massive amount of stress. There is much to accomplish in what seems like an impossibly short amount of time.

However, as troublesome as it may be, finals week can be efficiently conquered by using these simple tips:

1. DON’T FREAK OUT.

If you’ve been proactive in a class all semester, you’ve retained more than you realize. The final exam is not an impossible task.

2. Start early and don’t cram.

It’s impossible to review a semester’s worth of notes in an hour. Give yourself a few days to look at all of the material for a class.

3. Break up your study time.

Efficiently study for an hour at a time while giving yourself 10 or 15 minute breaks in between. Otherwise, you will lose this time anyways by distracting yourself.

4. De-stress yourself.

Go for a run or enjoy the weather in some other way. This will clear your mind and also help to lower your anxiety, which will in turn make it easier to study.

5. Concentrate on the important details.

If you’re low on time, look at the big ideas and attempt to make it through to the small ones.

6. SLEEP.

College students tend to forget this is important. It’s much easier to test when you’ve gotten six or more hours of sleep.

7. Make a list and hold yourself to it.

If you know what you’re supposed to study on what day, you’ll feel more organized and will be more likely to accomplish it.

8. Study in a group.

Items you didn’t understand on previous tests will be on the final, so having people around to answer your questions can be extremely helpful. Also, teaching other people is an extremely effective way to study.

9. Go someplace you can concentrate.

Attempting to study in someplace like the Student Union during lunch hour isn’t worth your time. Set yourself up in a relatively quiet place with few distractions, such as a study room in Bierce Library.

10. CELEBRATE.

Finals week can feel like a marathon. Do something fun once you’re done! As I am now finishing my sophomore year at The University of Akron, I know that finals week can seem like a looming terror.

I also know how easy it is to say, “It’s impossible to remember everything I’ve learned all semester; I’m just not even going to try!”

However, by following these steps, I have made my finals weeks less stressful and my studying more efficient. Although it may seem like a huge mountain to climb, finals week is an experience that can be conquered with the right tools.

As the semester comes to a close, we all look forward to summer break. There is only that one barrier that we all have to get through: final exams.

Do we really need a whole week devoted to making our lives miserable? Do we need them at all?

Final exam week could be put to much better use. I mean, what would you do with another week of summer? That is another week of working with no time restrictions and making more money, not having to study, hanging out with friends or sleeping in and staying up late.

Instead of a whole extra week for finals, the last day of class could be used.

No one would have to worry about where their exam is going to be, if it is going to interfere with their work schedule or that they are going to completely forget and not show up at all. Everybody would know that tests were coming and where they had to be at what time.

Having all the finals at a different time on a different day than the normal class is just confusing. Besides, one extra day of instruction isn’t going to make much of a difference. If you do not know the skills by the end of the semester, you probably won’t know them in one day.

Another solution or substitute for finals week is that we could just have final projects that are due the last day of class. They could be projects that showcase what we have learned. In design classes, they could be an essay answering questions given out earlier in the semester or they could be a class presentation focusing on a topic covered during the semester.

What we don’t need is a final project due the last day of class and a final test. The final project assesses our skills and knowledge and so does a test. There is no need for two evaluations. One or the other is plenty.

Finals week is a thing of the past. Students are ready to move on and make better use of their time. Taking finals week away all together would save time and save students money.

They would not have to request time off of work and they wouldn’t have to drive to campus for two hours of class that could have been avoided in the
first place.

The end of the semester brings with it a lot of stress. Finals have to be studied for and papers need to be written. Even the start of planning
for next semester can be exhausting. This semester isn’t even over, but you already have to plan out the classes you are going to take in
the fall.

Getting halfway through the year at the end of fall semester can be hard enough when Christmas presents and a whole month off are on the horizon. But that has nothing on the allure of sunshine and happiness the end of spring semester brings.

How can anyone focus – let alone study – for any course when the days are getting longer and the temperatures are rising? I am one of those weird winter people. I actually do enjoy winter and the whole holiday season. But even I can’t deny that when those warm days hit the absolute last thing I want to do is sit inside and take notes on a lecture.

Now by the time it actually gets warm, especially in Ohio, there really is only about a month left of school. How hard could a few weeks be when you have a few months of summer break ahead of you? Those last few weeks are the most grueling of them all.

The last few weeks are usually the most important and the most content heavy. A lot of professors see the clock running out and are pushing
to get all the topics they wanted to get covered. And by the final date, you really aren’t learning anything anymore.

This is the time when all of your final projects come together. For many unfortunate souls, there is the dreaded “group project.” Why any professors punish their students with this kind of assignment is beyond me.

I know they think they are allowing us to break up the work, but all it does is create one giant headache. Here’s an idea: Set up an assignment that a student can actually learn from by being able to accomplish all aspects of it.

Why can’t the end of the semester just kind of fade out into summer? Why can’t the work load get easier until there are just free days?

I think it is amazing how hard it is to convince professors to have class outside. When it is a lovely day and the sun is shining, why not take advantage of our lovely campus and move class outdoors?

Shout out to Dr. Chura for taking my class outside a few semesters back to read Whitman. The best way to appreciate Whitman is, of course, while appreciating nature; but the simple fact that a professor realized that and saw that the great outdoors is a better learning atmosphere than a stuffy classroom on a summer afternoon was refreshing.

Try not to slack off in studying and try to stay focused through the last few weeks of the semester. You will have plenty of sunny days to appreciate in the next months to come. In the long run it will definitely pay to get good grades on your finals. Your suffering is not in vain.

The single greatest case for faith in humanity happened in October of 1962. Historically, this was the moment the USSR came close to nuking the U.S. and vice versa. The world could have easily perished into the nuclear fires of Mutually Assured Destruction.

We realistically could’ve been sentenced to surviving in a post-apocalyptic wasteland of ash and radiation. Instead, we have this world. Orphans starve while we fret about the latest fashions.

There’s a social stigma to tragedies that it’s wrong to think every tragedy is the last. That acknowledging its constant possibility is bad. Too many people turn around after a tragedy and live their life the exact same, maybe a little shaken.

Maybe there’s even a built-in mechanism in society for tragedies where everyone forgets about death and destruction at the end of every week.

We, as Americans, are not bathed in the largest possible amount of violence and horror of this world to possibly be desensitized. And if a bomb that kills eight people is too much for you, don’t leave the house.

If you can’t handle this imperfect world, you sadly don’t have a choice; this world will invade your quiet world of peace regardless of what you do or believe to prevent it.

But one solution we try to impose upon human monsters is detecting them, seeing their patterns and symptoms. We easily can predict typhoons, hurricanes and earthquakes. But finding the ultimate spawning pit for human evil, the factory making bad men or the Satan gene eludes us.

The truth is that everyone has the potential to do horrible things; it just takes a reworking of our understanding of moral action. Terrorists blow themselves up because they think it’ll make the world a better place, just as we target the newest blacklisted ethnicity.

Get rid of X and the world will be a better place.

Think of prevention like this: Imagine you’re a doctor treating a suicidal schizophrenic; why keep treating a patient that just keeps getting sick? It’s more unethical to keep them alive, constantly inflicting pain on themselves, and better to put them out of their misery.

The schizophrenic is mankind and the easy solutions are to either euthanize it or constrain it. Do we consume ourselves in the fires of mutually assured destruction or suppress everything that is human?

My answer is that natural selection will make that decision if we don’t.

The take-away answer is that life is about the journey, not the destination. Cliché as it is, it’s the truth that I always conclude. Live a meaningful life, not for those who can’t, but because one day you will die. There, I said it. It’s best to think of your life less of where you’re going and more about where you’ve been or are.

Also, it was William Shakespeare’s birthday. He would’ve been 397 if he was a vampire.