As I maneuver into the overcrowded parking deck and trudge back to my room in the biting cold, I exert a sigh of simultaneous gratitude and unease after a longer-than-planned six hour journey back to campus (because traveling on I-81 the Sunday after Thanksgiving is a notoriously prolonged endeavor). As comforting as this return is, I also know that I am walking towards the most challenging, stress-inducing two weeks of the semester. The weight of quickly approaching deadlines, academic word limits that cruelly cramp my tendency toward verbosity and late nights buried in lower-level library rooms hover ominously ahead.

Luckily, my travels back to campus have never been marked by isolation. Each year, I’ve been fortunate to pass the hours-long journey down to the Shenandoah Valley in the company of a close friend, laughing at shared memories as the melodies of holiday tunes play softly in the background. Often, our seemingly endless cycle of collective stopping and starting is met with a GPS suggestion to deviate from the planned route to “save 10 minutes.” So, we take the suggested exit, abandoning crowded highways packed full of idling minivans for one-lane back roads lined with branching trees shedding the last of their foliage.

Eventually, we made our way back to campus. No return can quite represent the experience of coming back to campus after Thanksgiving like that of my junior year. As we walked through the all-too-familiar door of our townhouse, we were met with the welcoming embrace of our roommates. That evening, we sat in our living room, the six of us, enjoying takeout as the sun dipped behind the rolling Blue Ridge peaks that cradle our college oasis. We talked about our breaks and upcoming weeks in a room adorned with thoughtfully arranged garland and a mysteriously on-the-move Elf on the Shelf — efforts by my roommates to craft an authentic holiday experience, even if it can only be appreciated for two short weeks. 

This scene of genuine comradery marked the beginning of what many college students consider to be the worst weeks of the semester. Upon our return to campus from a relatively short break, we are met with the final stretch of courses we’ve poured ourselves into for weeks, the impending weight of finals and the annual dread of reckoning with the ever-approaching conclusion of college. And yet, sitting together in that living room, we welcomed in this imminent period of inevitably high emotions with a moment of warm familiarity, attempting to momentarily forgo the world of exams, final essays and browsers cluttered with open tabs that awaited us.

I’ve always said that I like finals, a sentiment that is frequently met with confused expressions and raised eyebrows. I can’t and won’t ever claim that finals week is easy. In my experience, it is quite the opposite. Throughout college, I’ve faced my fair share of lengthy research papers, multi-hour exams and final essays. Historically, it’s been a week of working until the early hours of the morning, emerging from the library’s depths at an hour that I will not publicly admit in this opinion piece. It is a week of burning through meal swipes by Wednesday, thanks to an alarming number of Coop coffees. It’s a time when I repeatedly question why I chose to major in the humanities, dooming myself to a sea of open Word documents, endless searches through library shelves and futile attempts to locate a quote that I distinctly remember discussing in class but, for the life of me, can’t seem to find in the book itself.

Finals week is difficult in every sense. It is physically, emotionally and intellectually demanding. Despite the challenges, I have never found that finals week leaves me anticipating a departure from campus. In fact, I think it motivates my desire to linger longer. Amidst the chaos, stress, early sunsets and cold air exists small joys that can help initiate a change in perspective.

I’ve always felt that a sense of such strong community descends upon the campus as the semester comes to a close. Ubiquitous recognition of the reality that we are all struggling a bit seems to inject the student body with an air of comradery. Unified by a fresh commonality of academic stress, everyone seems perhaps a bit more supportive, a bit more caring and a bit more connected to the other lone soldier typing away on the third floor of Leyburn. Maybe we are suffering, but at least we are suffering together! No one is necessarily left unimpacted — the icy wind nips the ears of everyone, so we all pull out our defenses. 

This sense of renewed companionship is accompanied by the enthusiasm and gratitude characteristic of the holidays. In the week leading up to finals, students gather to attend the town Christmas parade and join the university singers for a night filled with choral pieces and carols. Despite all of the work ahead, there’s a collective festivity that comes over students, faculty, staff and community members.

It’s not only that the campus as a whole feels a bit more communal, but it is during times of such shared pressure that I’ve experienced some of the most memorable moments of college. The universal demands of finals leave many of us with no choice but to spend countless hours working, so we might as well work together. After all, rarely does one stay up writing a procrastinated essay alone. Those times of staring at monitors and pouring over academic articles are often shared with friends. We dot our periods of intense bursts of work with moments of meaningful conversation, fits of laughter and perhaps a bit of emotional support when everything becomes a bit too much to bear. We come together for study breaks, going on walks, volunteering or attending the highly anticipated midnight breakfast.

I think it is perhaps a truth of humanity that we cleave to each other in times of difficulty. There’s something about facing challenges together that forges new bonds. Confronting the thick of it together seems to somehow make even the most high-stress, heavy experiences feel perhaps a little bit lighter. 

In community with others, I am reminded of how this life of writing essays on newly considered topics, rereading passages from books that broaden perspectives and taking exams on material that just weeks ago, I knew nothing about, is not a burden, but a deeply fulfilling privilege. I am in a place I’ve always wished to be, studying what I love to learn about. Even amid all of the expectations, talk of GPAs and panic over the impending reality of grad school admittance, amongst this sense of such authentic support, one can find a quiet sense of fulfillment. Rid of most other scheduled obligations, finals week is one of the only periods of the school year that can be dedicated entirely to learning. Yes, the week is hard. But it is also ultimately a part of the all-encompassing experience that makes college so special.

The concluding weeks of the semester are not all that different from the seemingly endless travels that they tend to begin with. Yes, it is long, slow and tiring, but it is also full of nostalgia, friendship, bubbling anticipation and a willingness to embrace unexpected detours. Smooshed together on campus and all facing a familiar shared plight, we have no choice but to gravitate towards each other. Perhaps we take the occasional detour that really isn’t all that quicker but grants us the pleasure of beautiful scenery, memorable conversation or much-needed moments of reprieve. Rather than emphasizing the length or demands of the journey, perhaps we can come to appreciate it as a time of reflection, discovery and community before we arrive at the destination.

It seems to be common for people to respond to talk of all that one has to do during finals with, “Well, at least it will all be over so soon!” I’ve even said this myself. Perhaps instead of longing for its conclusion, we should spend time living intentionally in the present, embracing an eagerness to spend more time with dear friends reading, writing and learning about subjects that we care about most. We only have a few finals weeks at Washington and Lee. Why rush through them?