As the end of the semester draws near, students are working on final papers, projects, and studying for exams. To aid during this process, Nease Library has Exam Cram during the final weeks of the semester.
Exam Cram was first introduced to the student body a few years ago under the name “Late Night.” This event was a little different than the Exam Cram and served a different purpose.
One of the head librarians, Erin McCoy, explained that Late Night was less about studying and more about taking a study break. She said, “It served its purpose by getting students comfortable in the library and helped us understand what students needed.”
While Exam Cram still maintains some of this attitude and helps give students a way of relaxing, it does not primarily aim to help students have a study break.
“A few years ago when CAS ‘moved in,’ we started thinking about a more collaborative event that was more study-oriented. At Late Night, we didn’t have SI sessions or extra writing tutors, so those have been added since we moved to the Exam Cram description,” said McCoy. “We also added the 2 a.m. closing time because we found that students weren’t done with everything at midnight.”
Now that Exam Cram is a collaborative event between CAS and Nease, it’s an atmosphere that helps members of the student body both relax and get extra help with assignments if needed.
This year, in addition to Exam Cram, is “Research and Writing Week.” Director of the Center for Academic Success David Restrick Jr. said, “Normally, we’ve always had Exam Cram, which was one day or one evening of finding support, but [Research and Writing Week is] about students and trying to help one garner an idea that they should be working on papers over the course of the school year and getting those done, and kind of providing ongoing support for that.”
He added, “We’ve been doing Exam Cram for the last few years, and that’s kind of focused on exams and studying for the end of the semester, but we wanted to lead up to that by providing different services and things to students by offering specific help.”
Within Research and Writing Week are various workshops on specific kinds of writing styles and study habits. Research and Writing Week will continue as long as the student body takes advantage of the resources being offered.