Time flies when you’re having fun, and with finals season rearing its ugly head once more, many students may find themselves scrambling to meet deadlines that seemed distant at the beginning of the semester. Fordham University is one of many universities that reserves a brief period of time within the academic calendar called “reading days,” which are intended to allow students to prepare for their final exams without the additional burden of attending their regularly-scheduled classes. Fordham typically devotes the two days following the cessation of classes for these purposes. However, there are many circumstances in which final exams can be scheduled during this period, which contradicts its original purpose. Therefore, Fordham students may benefit from an extension of this reading period.
According to Fordham’s undergraduate faculty handbook, final exams for the languages and cultures department are consistently scheduled on the second reading day. Fordham currently requires that undergraduate students pursuing a Bachelor of Arts (and psychology majors who are not on the pre-health track) complete language courses up to the 2001 level to graduate. While there are no concrete statistics available that ascertain the exact percentage of Fordham students who are pursuing a B.A., Fordham currently offers 70 majors across both the Rose Hill and Lincoln Center campuses (excluding the Gabelli School of Business, as its core curriculum does not include a language requirement); out of these 70, 51 are B.A. degrees. Consequently, it is likely that a majority of Fordham students would be required to take a final exam during the reading period at some point in their college career.
Georgia Heinzmann, FCRH ’26, expressed her desire for more reading days. “I wish there were more reading days because two days just isn’t enough, and nobody actually counts the weekend [as a part of the reading period],” she said. For context, the Fordham University reading period for the Spring 2025 semester includes the Thursday and Friday after the conclusion of classes and informally extends into the weekend preceding the start of final exams. As an English major, Heinzmann is required to complete a languages and cultures sequence to graduate. When asked about how the languages and cultures final exam protocol impacted her ability to effectively utilize the reading period, she asserted that “I hated it because [my exam] was during the reading days, so there was no time to study at all. I [would attend] my last class and then two days later I had [to take] my final. We also have the oral exam that’s [scheduled] during the reading days.”
As a STEM major on the pre-health track, I am not required to complete the languages and cultures requirement for graduation. However, I can relate to Heinzmann’s frustration, as the final exams for the science laboratory courses are also frequently scheduled during the reading days. Given the extremely rigorous nature of STEM coursework and the pre-health track in general, I often find myself exasperated and overwhelmed when attempting to organize study time for my laboratory courses, while simultaneously learning new material for the corresponding lecture sections and preparing for their exams. It is important to note that laboratory courses often conclude earlier than their lecture counterparts to accommodate this, but in my experience, this is not necessarily universal among all courses.
Research recognizes successive learning as one of the most effective learning strategies when aiming to improve information recall and retention, both of which are important skills in regard to traditional academic testing methods. Successive learning relies on multiple sessions of “spaced practice”; that is, the studying of exam materials in many short sessions that occur over a long period of time. Of course, students should be proactive when arranging studying periods and are responsible for knowing how much time is necessary to prepare for their courses. However, Fordham’s limited reading period certainly makes this a difficult feat, especially if you happen to be an unlucky student who has an exam scheduled during this time.
It could be argued that an extended reading period may have the potential to promote procrastination and therefore decrease academic performance. However, a scientific study that explored why academic procrastination occurs determined that a majority of students cited internal reasoning (i.e., poor self-discipline, mental and physical health issues and a lack of effective study skills) for their procrastination rather than external (situational) reasoning. For those students who did cite external reasons related to institutional conditions, having an extended study period or a prolonged academic semester was not mentioned.
The New York State Education Department currently requires that students enrolled in a Baccalaureate degree program complete no less than 120 semester hours prior to graduation. One semester hour is equivalent to 12.5 hours of in-person instruction, which would mean that a student would have to complete 1,500 contact hours to graduate, or about 188 contact hours per semester. In addition to mandates that require the completion of the fall and spring semesters prior to Christmas Day and commencement, respectively, it is reasonable to assume that the academic year would have to be lengthened to accommodate a prolonged reading period.
Personally, I would have no qualms with this if it meant that I could have more time to dedicate to my studies. I also acknowledge that students who live out of state or outside of the U.S. may find this change inconvenient due to travel arrangements. Nonetheless, I believe that many students would benefit from having more reading days, as this would alleviate some of the pressure caused by the chaotic nature of finals week, while also accommodating the schedules of students who have exams scheduled during the reading days.
Theresa Gormley, FCRH ’26, is a biological sciences major from Newburgh, New York.
