Remember back in first semester of freshman year when finals week was bearing down on you for the very first time? So young and so naïve, you didn’t think to question your teachers when they told you not to stress about finding time to prepare. “It’s Dead Week,” they consoled you. “You won’t have homework, and you can just study.”

But any Patriot who has braved their share of finals knows that this is most definitely not the case: Dead Week is dead. Even though finals may be looming only days away, teachers continue to pile on the homework. Now, in the time that had supposedly been reserved for preparing for the most important tests of the semester, you find yourself forced to fend off a myriad of miscellaneous assignments before you can even begin to think about studying. A formal lab report for chemistry, a unit test in math, a timeline for history, an essay in English, and worksheets galore—frankly, this is enough homework to keep you busy on a regular school night, but in combination with masses of material you have to memorize for the impending tests, the work load is threatening to bury you alive. With a sigh, you realize that you will be mourning the loss of Dead Week for a long, long time.