Texas Wesleyan students are working hard to cram in every last assignment before dead day, finals and graduation. 

“This semester has definitely been the most stressful with graduation coming up in a few short weeks,” senior mass communications major Jose Najar said, “but I know that I will make it, I just have to push hard till then.” 

Due to impending deadlines, Najar said he’s gotten less sleep from all the stress. 

“When professors ask how much sleep we’re getting before finals, I always think of actor Will Ferrell in the ‘Elf’ movie,” Najar said, “when he says, ‘Great! I got a full 40 minutes!’ because I could not relate more to that.” 

According to a study conducted by MentalHelp in 2016, 89 percent of college students were stressed at least two to four times per semester, and 30 percent said they were stressed for almost the entire semester.  

Thirty-one percent of students said that finals were the biggest source of their stress. The second source of stress was graduating on time and then finding a job post graduation.xx 

Texas Wesleyan’s reference librarians, Risa Brown and Dennis Miles, agree that students are under more stress and doing more to prepare for finals as dead day approaches.  

“The students at Texas Wesleyan are definitely under more stress than usual,” Miles said. “They’re stressing out and that’s about all I’ve seen here in the library.”  

Brown said the stress is visible amongst the students in the library. 

“I’ve seen lots of slumped shoulders, and lots of people saying that they are down to the final countdown,” Brown said, “but as far as actual work, of course there’s the usual last minute students trying to get papers put together and things like that.” 

Brown said this is the time students really need the most help from libarians.  

“Some are asking our help with how to do their citations and checking to see if they are right,” Brown said, “which most of the time they are right.” 

Brown said she’s seen students that seem to be making better use of their time this semester. 

“I haven’t noticed as many people coming in and saying, ‘I have this paper due tomorrow and I haven’t started,’” Brown said. “I just haven’t seen that as much this semester, so people seem to be planning ahead a little bit better. Our candy dish sure has been getting low though.”  

Junior exercise science major Parker Robinson said he has some stresses for the upcoming finals week.  

“I heard someone once say that the most effective way to do it is just to do it and that is the only thing going through my head for finals week,” Robinson said. “If we focus on one thing at a time, then we’ll be done before we know it.” 

Trace Lutteringer, a junior business major, said he also has struggles as he approaches the end of the semester. 

“I have had multiple 30-page papers to write, on top of multiple presentations and even a commercial,” Lutteringer said. “I have stayed hours in the library, but I know that it will all be worth it to move on to my senior year.”