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End-of-year stress hits more than just students
BY KENDRA RICHARDS
STATESMAN STAFF WRITER
ISSUE: 78/29
The approaching finals week spells one word for students: stress. However, we sometimes forget about the folks at the other end: professors. As the ones who give out the homework and the tests but don’t have to do any of it, most students think they have it easy; but the end of the semester brings plenty of stress for professors as well as students. “Students have way more stress than professors,” said sophomore Jess Stinson. “They have to study for hours for a single test, and professors have extra time after the semester
is over to grade them.”
This was most students’ answer to the question of who had more stress, but professors obviously had a rebuttle. “Being a professor is just as stressful, if not more stressful, than being a student,” said Karen Marsh, professor of psychology. Marsh said she admits that giving three finals isn’t as stressful as taking three finals, but that professors do more than grade exams. “The end of the semester is full of wrap-up things,” said Marsh. “Students have questions and things more than they did at the beginning of the semester. Also, if a professor has a T.A., they are also wrapping up their semester and leaving, so they aren’t there anymore to help.”
John Schwetman, assistant professor of English, agreed with this, pointing out that there is also more work for them to do than the assignments and tests that are related to the classroom. “Consider also that UMD faculty have stresses coming from research and service obligations on top of the instructional obligations,” said Schwetman. But the classroom-related work is quite a load itself. Schwetman reminded us that professors aren’t just grading your exam or even your class’ exams, but they often have several classes’ exams to grade at once.
“I tend to assign essay exams,” Schwetman said. “Along with papers that I grade at the end of the semester, this can lead to great deal of grading. There have been finals weeks when I have had over 200 essay tests to grade and only a few days to complete them.” Richard Green, professor of mathematics and statistics, said that there are also students’ registration inquiries to deal with at this time of the year. “I am currently answering e-mails from students who are having troubles registering for my class next semester,” said Green. “I thought that it was because classes are full, but I found out today that they’re not. Students cannot get in because they have not taken the prerequisites—apparently the rules were never enforced before, but now they are.”
Sophomore David Stieler gave professors some credit for this aspect. “The stress load is probably about the same,” said Stieler, pointing out that professors are also advisors, and that can make for even more questions and meetings with students. After all of this competition and comparison between stress levels of students and professors, Schwetman made the point that they cannot always be compared, because they are equal in different ways. “I do not know whether the stress of grading is worse than or better than the stress of taking exams,” said Schwetman. “Perhaps it is just a different kind of stress.”
