Finals week is globally known to be full of mania and stress! Students all over the world do their best to cram in all of the information they have learned over the span of a semester. Doing all they can to finish with the best possible grade. Stress overwhelms the air.

Cape Central High School has now reached this time of the year. Anxiously anticipating the holiday break, it is crunch time at CHS. However, after talking to many students, it seems as though there are various levels of stress as this semester comes to a close.

Sophomore Garrett Snider is one of these students. When asked he was feeling in the days leading up to finals, he stated, “I have decently easy finals. The only one I’m scared about is my Honors Chemistry final.” Although he feels as though he does not have super hard finals, there is a little bit less stress than usual this semester. Snider also expressed his excitement for Christmas break to start. 

Lydia Cao, a junior at CHS, is experiencing an immense amount of stress this week. Cao is a varsity diver for Cape Central and has diving practice every day after school til 7 pm. Because we no longer have access to diving boards in Cape Girardeau, the diving team must travel to Perryville every day, which is the cause of such a late ending of practice. She expressed that practice makes it hard to devote the amount of time to her studies that she would like.

She stated that aside from diving practice every day, “I’ve been spending a lot of time working on my English essay recently, and reviewing for my finals has been neglected.” Because most classes just jump straight into CAP material, there is frequently an overflow of assignments that were started prior to finals. This can create extra stress on students like Lydia that still have normal work to finish, on top of having to try to study for finals.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are students who are being able to take a lighter load of work this semester through the Flex program at CHS. The Flex program is for senior students who have completed enough credits to be able to have fewer class periods at school and have the opportunity to work or take college classes. 

Sydnee Williams is one of those seniors. Her previous finals weeks at CHS have been quite stressful due to the rigorous classes she was a part of. She expressed, “It’s pretty easy since I only have three classes. I don’t have to stress myself to study for so many different things. I can focus on the few that I have a get good grades on them.” Williams is grateful that her hard work in her previous years in high school has paid off and now she is free of most stress.

This week at CHS there is a variety of stress levels and emotions roaming the halls. The Tiger Newspaper wishes all students good luck as they finish the semester and we hope that everyone has a very happy holiday break!