Finals differ through campus

As finals week commences, IU students seem to share a common bond as they pack libraries and study areas for one last push to boost fall semester grades. However, a short trip around campus reveals a wide range of final exams and accompanying stress during this time of year. \nIn geography associate professor Charles Greer's E302 Geographic Patterns in China, students will have a complete semester grade without having to take a final exam. The grades in E302 are based solely on daily in-class exercises and two book reviews. While some students might think they are simply getting off easy without a final in Greer's class, the tenured professor describes a method to his madness.\n"The way I feel about finals is the same reason I don't give exams in general," Greer said. "I feel students learn more doing a little at a time rather than having everything at the end of the semester."\nGreer's opinion of exams in general is that they give students an inordinate amount of stress without achieving an equally high pay-off. \n"I didn't always do it like this, I sort of developed into this way of teaching during the last 15 years," Greer said.\nGreer said he feels that by having students come prepared with a small amount of material to class each day, they retain far more knowledge than if they were to be tested on a month's worth of information during one exam. \n"It's a relief to not have to cram at the end of the semester," said Tasha Replogle, a senior in E302. "It's nice to not have to learn a whole semester of material (for an exam) in one night."\nAcross campus from where Greer's class meets in Ballantine Hall is the IU Law School, where exam week takes an entirely different look. From Dec. 7 to 16, first year law students battle through final exams of a different sort. For the majority of law students, final exams are the culmination of an entire semester of work and are the sole determining factor in their semester grade.\n"The stress is unlike anything we've ever been involved in academically. It's a different beast," said IU law student Brian O'Connor.\nExams at the end of the semester are fairly typical of all law schools, said Aviva Orenstein, professor of law at IU. \n"It is obviously very stressful for the students, and there is always the danger that a student has a bad day and that the one exam does not reflect the student's knowledge or ability," Orenstein said. \nAdditionally, final exams in law school are graded on a relative basis, which provides another dimension of change.\n"The curve is the biggest adjustment for people," O'Connor said. "There is no right or wrong answer, it's relative to everyone else in the class."\nLaw school exams are conducted in this manner because of the nature of studying law. Law professors agree that having one final exam at the end of the semester is one of the best ways to prepare students for passing the bar exam and an eventual career in the legal field.\n"This type of testing requires students to synthesize large amounts of material and apply that synthesis to complex sets of facts," said Law Professor Lauren Robel. \nBack in the heart of campus is the School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation building, where students in many of the HPER's classes will have likely completed their finals exams before finals week.\nSherilyn Nott Foley is a professor in the Contemporary Dance Program at IU, and teaches classes in jazz dance performance through the HPER. Students in Foley's classes participate in a non-traditional final exam at the end of the semester.\n"We have a Dance Concert at the end of each semester that the students participate in as their final," Foley said.\nFoley feels having her students participate in a performance-based final exam is one of the best ways for the students to bring together all they have learned throughout the semester.\n"The concert is a lot of fun," Foley said, "and the students are eager to participate as a way to sort of show-off what they've accomplished."\n-- Contact staff writer Ron Neroda at rneroda@indiana.edu.