On September 7, the Dean of Undergraduate Studies, Jeffrey Wolcowitz, announced important changes to the 2016 to 2017 final exam schedule and the new Course Time Slot Grid. Break between classes is extended, new course time slots are added and more exam times are accommodated in one exam day.

Starting from this semester, a new Course Time Slot Grid is utilized. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, there is a new 8:00 a.m. to 9:15 a.m. slot added, which can be used twice per week for one course. From Mondays to Thursdays, there are now 7:00 p.m. to 8:15 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. time blocks at night. Beside, students are now having longer breaks between classes too. Instead of 10 minutes, students now have 15 minutes to go between their classes.

At the same time, since the way that course meeting times project onto the final exam schedule is altered, there are new changes in the final exam schedule. Each exam day now harbors four exam time slots, with the last one ranging from 7:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.

These new changes in class and exam schedules are designed to aid students in managing time better and evading direct conflicts with other class exams. According to Wolcowitz, the conception of the new exam schedule was mostly due to the addition of new teaching slots. Since the university this year hired many new teachers, more faculty meeting time slots have been set aside.

Before these new changes, more students would experience a clash between their exam times and class meetings; therefore, it was decided that the creation of more final exam slots would help ease this problem. Meanwhile, the faculty would follow their regular exam schedules: they will have the usual 48 hours to finish recording scores of all exams.

It is pertinent to note that, however, just as the Wolcowitz mentioned, “I am not asking students to do anything different now than in the past.”

Wolcowitz emphasized that, like in the past, no students will be expected to take more than two exams per day. Also, because of the newly added evening slot, no students will be expected take one exam during the evening time slot and another at 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. the next day. Students who fall in this category or have multiple final exams at the same time will eventually be contacted by the dean to make alternative arrangements. For any questions, students are requested to see their deans or their first-year coordinators.