Dead week. Urban dictionary defines it as “a weeklong holiday in which the university tries to juke students into believing it’s a concentrated study period, when actually its a time for professors to give out as many exams as they can” or, maybe even more accurately put, “the week where you will see the most strangers crying.”
Most of us go into dead week under the impression we can take the time to concentrate on studying for impending finals. The joke is on us — that is rarely the case. Though I yet have had this happen in my own classes, my heart goes out to the poor souls I have heard complaining about their finals already. Instead, my week is filled with a major project due almost every day of the week.
Since freshman year, I have wondered what dead week is meant to be, but I’ll continue to hold out hope that one day dead week will not be a period of wanting sweet, blissful death as an alternative to the struggle of cramming for quizzes, projects or other assignments.
Honestly though, I understand it is the end of the semester and things need to get done. Professors, I just have a question for you: do you enjoy having the sudden influx of major projects and exams coming in all at once? I cannot, for the life of me, think of any reason why setting up the syllabus in this way is any easier for you than it is for us students.
So everyone, professors and students alike, who are powering through the week in caffeine-induced frenzies, struggling with faltering energy and motivation, I wish you all good luck. Wish me luck too, please, as I’m in the same boat. All I can say is get sleep whenever you can, even if it means someone taking a picture of you in a public place napping and then becoming a dead week meme. Also, don’t feel guilty for eating junk food. Eat whatever makes you happy so you feel less dead on the inside. That is the best advice I can offer during these hard times.
If you are looking to procrastinate, because, let’s face it, our drive to get things done is quickly fading, I would check out the dead week hashtag. There are some tweets counting the number of times someone has cried, so you can see if they have beaten your record yet. You can never read too many posts regarding the deadness inside all university students this week.
