What is a midterm?

As the name suggests, midterm exams are traditionally thought of as assessments taken halfway through the academic semester. Yet at Vanderbilt, today — the last day of the Spring 2024 semester — ranks second in days with the highest frequency of midterms. Below, The Hustler uncovers what a midterm really is, investigating the timing, number and weights of midterm exams, papers and projects across all four schools at Vanderbilt. 

For the purposes of this article, the term “midterm” includes exams, papers and projects due before or on the last day of classes. The weeks of the semester are counted from Monday to Sunday over the course of the spring semester — from Jan. 8 to April 22 — for a total of 17 weeks.

When are midterms?

The week with the most midterms overall is week 9 — the week before spring break — with 14% of midterms, followed by week 16 with 11% of midterms. Week 16 is the last full week of classes. The most midterms were due on March 7, the Thursday before spring break, followed by April 22, the last day of classes.

The most exams also fell during week 9, whereas the most papers, just over 15%, were due during week 13, which spanned April 1-7. The most projects were due during week 16 at 25%. 

Keri Tallman, senior lecturer in biochemistry and cellular biology, teaches one of two biochemistry courses offered in the spring. This year, Tallman said that her course, taught jointly with Lars Plate, received special permission from the A&S dean’s office to give a midterm exam on the last day of classes. In The Hustler’s sample, two exams — BSCI 2520: Biochemistry and PSY-PC 2110: Introduction to Statistical Analysis, seven projects and nine papers were scheduled for the last day of classes.

The BSCI 2520 final exam is scheduled for two days later; in the past, the fourth midterm and final exam have been given consecutively on the day of the final. PSY-PC 2110 offers two non-cumulative midterms, each worth 25% of students’ grades, in lieu of a final exam.

She described the process of scheduling midterms, noting the challenge of adhering to university guidelines while also ensuring “even spacing” of exams.

“We cannot schedule exams or major assignments on any religious holiday or during dead week, which really limits the days we have available,” Tallman said in an email to The Hustler. “I think most professors prefer to space out exams like I do and have the same limitations, which explains why they typically overlap.”

The 2023-24 Undergraduate Academic Calendar does not list dead week but instead indicates a combined period of final exams and reading days from April 23 through May 2.

Balancing schedules, course workloads

Echoing Tallman’s sentiments, Thomas Clements, senior lecturer of biological sciences and assistant director of the Learning Assistant program, emphasized the importance of evenly spaced midterms in courses which offer dropped exams. This semester, Clements is teaching genetics and a special topics course titled “Improv in Science Communication”; he regularly teaches an introductory biology course in the fall. 

“With three to four exams to work with, it’s difficult to make sure each covers an equal amount of content while also making sure all are relatively the same in terms of difficulty,” Clements said in an email to The Hustler. “This is especially important in a course that has a dropped exam because I do not want students to feel like it’s unfair that they had to drop an ‘easier’ exam due to an unforeseen illness.”

Clements added that it is difficult to take other courses’ schedules into account due to inevitable exam overlap. 

“It’s not reasonable to try and balance things with other classes (general chemistry, organic, etc.) because no matter what considerations we try, it’s going to conflict with some course, and we cannot please everyone,” Clements said.

First-year Abby Faulhaber acknowledged the “daunting” workload for classes with midterm overlaps but described preparation as “manageable” when done ahead of time.

“My exams this semester are lined up, so I typically have a couple weeks off, and then they all fall within a couple days, making it very hard to wait until one exam is done to start studying for another,” Faulhaber said.

She added that professors have and can continue to help students by sharing exam dates and information in advance.

“I’m most appreciative when professors let us know ahead of time what will be on our exams, so that I can create a game plan for studying that won’t cause me to be overwhelmed when they finally come,” Faulhaber said.

Neomi Chen, a junior, said she recognizes the challenge of creating midterm schedules and expressed appreciation for the deadline flexibility afforded to her by her humanities professors, who often have less restrictions on midterm timing than STEM professors. 

“It’s definitely hard to balance studying for multiple midterms at the same time, so I appreciate the flexibility and grace that my humanities professors give me with extensions during exam-heavy weeks,” Chen said. “However, I’m not sure if there’s anything my STEM professors can do differently to support me as a student other than making themselves available for office hours/questions because oftentimes, I feel like the responsibility of preparing for an exam lies on the student.”

Sophomore Emma Chang, who is majoring in piano performance in Blair and computer science in the School of Engineering, spoke to the overlap of examinations across her majors. 

“The rigorous thing about the Blair workload is that so much of your time is spent practicing and perfecting your instrument outside of class…The work that you get in addition to all the practicing you do is hard to manage,” Chang said. “With Blair’s evenly spaced out projects versus the sudden surges of my CS classes, those weeks can be very rough — especially because the CS midterms are concentrated in the same two weeks.”

What types of midterms are Vandy students taking?

The majority of midterms are exams (57%), followed by 30% being papers and 13% being projects. The majority of Engineering classes offer exams (77%), with only 2% offering papers. Peabody classes placed a bigger emphasis than the other three schools on papers (35%) and projects (30%).

!function(){“use strict”;window.addEventListener(“message”,(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(“iframe”);for(var t in a.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var r=0;r