I cannot wait for this semester to be over. I have to admit I’m a little homesick, and that rarely happens.
But I know the end is approaching quickly, as this is my last column of the semester. It’s not like I can start over or anything; I wouldn’t want to even if I could. Every lesson is a life experience, and it will only make you stronger in the end, or at least that’s what my mother always says.
This semester, with all its ups and downs, has taken a toll on everyone in some way or another. In one semester, we watched the devastation of a city a mere hour and a half away on CNN every day for weeks. America has seen people stranded on what seemed like a little island hundreds of thousands of miles away in New Orleans. I have witnessed people lose everything from their homes to their hope.
The heroic efforts of many residents from other states to rescue displaced families from New Orleans has at many times been overlooked by the political and racial controversy that we are watching play out.
I really didn’t know much about FEMA or the Red Cross before this semester. I have worked side-by-side with volunteers from Red Cross at shelters in Baton Rouge. On a sour note, I have seen both FEMA and the Red Cross have tried to silence many Louisiana and Mississippi residents with about a $3,000 dollar paycheck. But there isn’t a price for negligence and inadequacy.
Then of course the racial tension seemed to move from the ruins of the streets of New Orleans to our campus. Hurricane Katrina was a wake-up call for all Americans, not just blacks to witness for themselves the race and class divide in United States.
A little further into the semester, I marched alongside protesters in search of a campus that represents diversity and observed counter protesters who argued nothing is wrong with the way things are. Black leaders argued otherwise as they pulled the chancellor out of his office to express their concerns early one Monday morning – and it doesn’t stop there.
For the only time I have known, Wal-Mart has been closing its doors at 10 p.m. every night for months. Other stores and businesses shut their doors early as well. Hurricane Katrina brought an influx of people in our city and some stores may have closed as a safety precaution. But what were they trying to protect themselves from – or should I say whom?
Now as the semester winds to an end, we must come to the realization that although this semester has been complicated, we still have two weeks left.
Today starts “dead week” – or “concentration period.”
This week is supposed to be period when students can concentrate on studying and finals. There are no scheduled organizational meetings or any campus events.
 For me, “dead week” has not lived up to its expectations. I find it my busiest week out of the semester every year. Plus, all of my professors will try to cram an enormous amount of information into my already packed binder of notes. I’ll sit in my night class and wonder why in the world did I took this class where there is only a midterm, final and one other assignment.
Here comes the late nights of Starbucks coffee – and I don’t even like coffee. My friends tease me about how much sugar and cream I always add to my coffee – you don’t even want to know how much.
Some students will try and figure out what is the highest or lowest score they can get on their final. This may determine how much effort they put into studying. I did it last semester. I only needed to get a low “C” on my final to get an “A” in the class and you know what? I got a high “C.” I studied just enough to get it, too. I told myself because I had to take the sequence to that class next semester I would go back and study the parts I didn’t cover over the break. Never happened.
So following that “you live, you learn” philosophy, I will try my hardest to study to gain knowledge and not just memorize all the information.
Around test time you find the most similarities between students in the class. – all wondering how the final will be or if there will be a curve and so on.
Then you have the dreaded study groups that can be a good or bad. My advice is don’t study with friends you haven’t seen in while. It will be the perfect excuse to catch up, but a week before finals is not the best time.
As the library becomes filled to capacity over the next week, students will have one goal – doing well on their finals. There is only one thing we all can do this late in the semester and that is to “concentrate,” period.