As anxious students fill the libraries and struggle through midterm season, the stress on campus is palpable. Especially at an institution that boasts “academic excellence” like Western, there’s no doubt students should work hard for their degrees. However, is the University demanding too much of its students?

Technically, university should be preparing us for meeting the demands and rigours of adult life. However, collegial expectations have little application to life in the “real world.” Teaching students time management skills is one thing, but earning a respectable grade should not require one or two all-nighters in a row.

Western Senate policy allows students to appeal more than two exams in 23 hours; however, this rule does not apply to midterm season. This means students are often faced with deadlines for exams, assignments and essays all in a tight period of time — along with having to balance their daily class schedules and other commitments.

A manager would never expect employees to complete several varied, highly challenging and rigidly timed tasks within 24 hours — likewise, a university should never do the same.

Admittedly, studying at Western is supposed to be a challenge. We regard ourselves as among the best institutions in North America because our programs are more demanding, our content is more complex and the work we produce is of a higher standard.

But where do we draw the line? The University’s expectations of students are, at times, excessive. There has to be a way to encourage high performance without pushing students to the point of nervous breakdown.

A second reading week during October is one solution to alleviating the stress of midterm season. Certainly most students would not mind sacrificing a week from their summer or winter vacation if it meant gaining some much needed study time during the fall.

Another solution would be to limit the grade weights of midterms to be level with or below the weight of final exams. When a course’s fall midterm reflects a significant percentage of a student’s mark, a one-time poor performance could dig a deep hole in anyone’s average.

Schools should also be looking at the ways they evaluate students. Timed, multiple-choice exams are not an appropriate judge of a student’s knowledge. Throwing anyone into a high-stress situation — especially those with learning disabilities or anxiety issues — is setting them up for failure.

Ultimately, it’s not only Western we should be criticizing, but also the university system in general. Midterm stress is simply a symptom of a larger problem among post-secondary institutions — instead of testing an individual’s ability to comprehend and apply knowledge, education has become a forced habit of memorizing and regurgitating information — a far cry from academic excellence.

For more on midterm mania, see Midterms prompt policy discussions