I’ve never been great at studying. I really wish I was, because I have a pretty good memory and understand things quickly. But I’m so easily distracted (oh Pandora, I like this song! Let’s find every other song by this band ever on YouTube!), chronically tired (and x+y=z…ZZZzzzZZZZZ), and really good at finding other things to do (let’s organize my closet by color and size and style and…). I know I’m not unique, so I try not to complain much. But when I found out I will have a grand total of zero normal finals, I could not have been happier. Part of the reason behind this is my schedule. With only five classes, it’s reasonable to think that someone would opt to not give a final. But I got even luckier than that! With only 3ish weeks to go in the school year, I am finding that my classwork is all that stands between me and straight-As. German 3 has been pretty easy for me all year. I’m a language person, plain and simple. When I found out our final was rewriting the ending to a story we had been reading, I was thrilled! I love writing, I love German, and we get to work in groups, which obviously makes everything better (except focusing, but that’s an acceptable tradeoff). It also helps that the story is actually somewhat interesting, and has the potential for a wide range of comedic and dramatic endings. AP Psychology is the only class with an actual final I had to take, but since the AP test was in the first week of May, we were allowed to take the final then too. Thankfully that gives us the next few weeks to use classwork to bring up our final grade- I’ve got a percent to go for a solid A! Sociology, one of the most interesting classes I’ve ever taken, has a really great format where instead of taking multiple choice or “regurgitating” tests, we display our understanding of the various sociological concepts we cover by analyzing a given situation. By just paying attention in class, good grades are pretty easy to come by. For our final, we have something similar. Some studying will obviously help, but with a final without a clear-cut answer, creativity is encouraged… Something I don’t mind at all! For Journalism, we do what we always do… Write things to entertain you guys. Or bore you, which is likely the case right now. Either way, no final here! Finally, physics. This is one of my favorites because instead of a whole new grade, we can schedule a time to demonstrate our knowledge on a subject to replace a quiz grade from the semester. This allows us to choose our fate. And, if we have kept up our scores, we have the option to keep our grade and not take a final. I’m not sure if this is a whole-school thing, or if I just got lucky, but this movement to alternative finals is exciting. I know that they help us get ready for college, but the reduction in stress is so worth it!