Midterms: A word often associated with stress and all-nighters that occurs in one of the worst weeks of your life. But now it’s not just one week. This year, the WAHS faculty made the decision to change their usual January week of midterms to allow teachers to decide when they want to have their exams; before or after break. The effect has been to merely stretch the stress out over the course of nearly a month, before and after a two-week vacation from school.

“I have almost all of my exams within two days the week before winter break, but then have my hardest exam split into two parts the week I get back from vacation,” says freshman Louise West, who is going to be spending her winter break hanging out with her friends in Oregon.

Sophomore Elizabeth Callaghan explained that she thinks some teachers believe that by having an exam after break they are giving the student more time to study. But, in reality, is any student going to spend their break studying for those one or two classes that choose not to have an exam before vacation?  “I have a feeling that even though the week before break I have a lot of exams, I will do better on all of those than I will on the one I have right after break,” Callaghan said. “There is no way I’m going to study as much as I would have had I been reviewing in class.”

It seems that allowing teachers the option to give exams either before or after break is only causing more stress over a longer period of time. “It’s not making us less stressed, is is just spreading the stress out so we can’t complain about having a ton of exams in one day,” said freshman Alice Taylor as she packed up for her biology class, her only class with a midterm after break.