Midterms have begun and students and faculty at UK are feeling the tension as the past few weeks come to a close.

Students all over campus are frantically studying for their midterms.

“It signifies the halfway point in your class and if the grades aren’t good, then the future looks bleak for getting a good grade,” Nick Holleman, an economics senior, said.

Holleman, who is taking five classes this semester, has a lot of work to do to get prepared for his upcoming grades, but is optimistic about his results.

Sometimes midterms are stressfull because of just finding the time to study in a busy schedule.

Students can find ways to relieve stress.

“I have multiple ways of relieving my stress. For me, it’s doing a couple Sudoku puzzles, listening to some of my favorite music, watching anime, or talking to my friends,” Holleman said. “The best way I’ve found to get through stress is to be around others, even if you don’t interact, just being around others calms most people enough to lower their stress levels.”

Other students like Nicole Horton, an English junior, try to relieve their stress by rewarding themselves for their hard work with video games or books. 

Students are not alone in their stress though, even professors feel the effects of midterms.

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“I want to accurately measure whether they understand the material that we covered in the class to this point,”  Tony Love, assistant professor of sociology, said. “I stress about whether my exams are an accurate representation of that.”

Love even says that a lot of his stress comes from when midterms are over and students are emailing him looking to increase their grades or asking for extra-credit.

Teachers have a job to do when they give tests- to prove what they get paid for and what students pay for is actually working.

“I feel like my students will do fine. My exams are average in terms of difficulty and the students who attend class regularly and take the course seriously always do well,” Love said.

Love said that a majority of the stress that students have over midterms is because it represents the halfway point of the semester and students are worried about the final outcome.

Once through the half of the semester, students and faculty can look forward to the last half of the semester.

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“Sociologically speaking, being stressed out at midterm time, staying up late studying, pulling all-nighters, eating pizza and making note cards, those are all expected behaviors associated with the role of a college student,” Love said. “You could be conforming to this socially prescribed behavior, whether you have a reason to be stressed or not.”

UK students and faculty are able to see the light at the end of the tunnel with midterms ending this week. With putting grades in or actually taking a midterm, many are glad to know that all the stress around midterms is ending.

Whether you are a teacher or a student, no one is exempt from the stress of midterms. All that midterms mean though, is that an end to the stress is close. 

“Stress is part of the college experience. You are learning a lot more than the topics of the courses in which you are enrolled,” Love said.

All that midterms mean though, is that an end to the stress is close.