By Angela Varney
Monday, Dec. 11 officially marks the beginning of finals week for Quinnipiac University students. While anxiety levels are running high as project deadlines, paper submissions and exam times quickly approach, students note it’s important to take a step back and laugh at the hilarity that ensues during this week that is notoriously rough for students.
Some seniors at Quinnipiac took time to reflect on their previous finals weeks in college and shared a few traumatic, embarrassing, yet funny memories with us.
Senior health science major Danielle Rattotti outside of the library.
Danielle Rattotti, a senior health science major, was in the middle of studying for her organic chemistry final when the bottom half of her Starbucks coffee cup completely broke off, spilling coffee all over her computer – and her notes.
“I spent a good two hours drying all of my stuff under the hand dryer in the bathroom,” Rattotti said. “After that didn’t work, I ran down Bobcat Way, with my computer open, back to my dorm room to try and back it up on my hard drive … in the middle of winter with a coat soaked in coffee that was now freezing cold.”
Senior health science major Jennifer Wisniewski even drew a picture of praying hands on one of her final exams and scribbled, “Jesus is the answer,” next to it in a last-ditch effort to salvage her physics grade.
Senior health science major Jen Wisniewski recalled her story in the library.
“The teacher hated me and always called me up to the board to do problems because I never knew how to do them,” Wisniewski said. “So, on the final, we had to draw a lever with tension and gravity or something, and I obviously had no idea how to do that. So, I drew a picture of Jesus with his hands in prayer form and wrote, ‘Jesus is the answer,’ basically saying my prayers for that final because I totally bombed it.’”
Wisniewski’s prayers were answered when she received a C-grade on the final, easily passing the rest of the course.
“Hey, maybe he felt bad for me and liked the drawing, and Jesus helped me out,” she said.
Samantha Masetti, yet another health science major seemingly plagued with bad luck during finals, described nearly missing one of her exams as “traumatic.”
Sam Masetti drinking coffee as she described almost missing her final exam.
“Every finals week I’m stressed, but this one was the worst,” Masetti said. “I got home from the library at 1 a.m. from studying for another class because I thought I had the whole next day to study since the exam wasn’t until 3. Well, guess what was at 12 p.m. and not at 3? My exam. So, I rushed to campus, couldn’t find the room, got lost, FaceTimed someone in my class for directions and sat down at my desk at 11:56 a.m. Horrible.”
Political science major Camillo Lemos may have had the worst luck of all when his car broke down on the way to his art history final, which he was already late for.
“I woke up at 9:30 a.m. Monday of finals week and was hanging out with my roommate Xavier. We started talking about whether or not I had many finals that week, which I thought started on Tuesday for me. I was wrong,” Lemos said. “So now it’s 9:45 a.m., and I’m barreling down the highway going 70 mph because my art history final started about an hour and a half ago. Then, my car breaks down because there was no oil in it.”
Lemos ended up leaving his car on the side of the highway with a note tucked under the windshield wiper reading, “please don’t tow this,” and then jumped into his roommate’s car and went to main campus.
“I arrived at 10:10 a.m. to discover I’m the last one in the room. My professor has me sit next to her to take it, and she knows I’m stressing. I had to take a two-and-a-half-hour final in 30 minutes,” Lemos said. “I almost cried.”