Although students may believe Penn State's weekend study days are an anomaly, only one school in the Big Ten has a study day during the week.

The University of Michigan began
final exams today after yesterday's study day.

The rest of the schools in the Big Ten have study days on the weekends.

Officials said it would be hard to change Penn State's study day schedule.

Having only weekend study days has been the pattern for a very long time, and it would be nearly impossible to rework the schedule, said Jim Wager, assistant vice provost for enrollment management and university registrar.

"It is not a money issue; it is just a matter of time," Wager said.

Many students said this weekend is not enough time to study, especially if they have final exams on Monday, and said an extra study day would be beneficial.

Amy Denholtz (junior-women's studies and public relations) said although a whole week might be unrealistic, even one day off of classes would help students.

"Even if we just had Friday off, one day would make a big difference," Amy said.

Some students disagreed, saying that another study day would be treated as an extended weekend and another excuse for people to party.

"Study days during the weekend discourage studying even more. People want to have fun on their last weekend of the semester," Sivanne Mass (junior-integrative arts and Jewish studies) said.

Sean Fox (senior-computer science) said using the weekend for study days is beneficial because the semester would not be dragged out.

Although not every student believes
that the extra study days would be used wisely, everyone agreed it would eliminate stress.

"Just having a weekend to study is frustrating, everyone's schedules are really insane," Emily Quinn (freshman-education) said. "It would reduce my stress level if we had more study days."

Beside the lack of time, students said there are other problems with having no additional study days before finals.

Will Larson (senior-broadcast journalism) believes that it is harder to study on weekends, and during the week is when everyone is in study mode.

Wager said it would be difficult to include study days during the week or the semester might need to have final exams in January.

No matter how much Penn State students complain, it could be worse: The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has exams scheduled through Saturday, Dec. 20.