It’s that time of year again, and freshman Ariah Alba isn’t the only student balancing final projects with exams this week.  The infamous finals week brings about stress across campus, but art students seem to agree that final projects bring about a different kind of stress, as well as different results in comparison to final exams.

One of junior Ashley McGrain’s final projects consisted of large photographic prints of people recovering from addictions shot with a 4×5 view camera, which is a film camera that exposes negative that are 4×5 inches in size.  McGrain shot 68 total images for this assignment. 

“I actually finished both of my final projects a week before they were due because they are so labor intensive,” McGrain said.  “I started on one at the beginning of the semester because things can pile up so fast.”

While McGrain finds final exams to be more stressful that final projects, she feels that she typically learns more from final projects.

“I find exams more stressful because they finish teaching material, and you are tested on it pretty soon after,” McGrain said.  “I think projects are more effective for learning material.  With projects, it is usually hands on and I usually work on it for an extensive period of time until I get it right.”

Senior Paty Valle believes that final projects are more stressful than final exams.

“Final critiques are stressful because sometimes you spend so much time on a project, but you don’t get good feedback on your work, and everyone hears it because you’re put on the spot,” Valle said.

Valle is currently working on a final project for her digital color class in which her concept for the piece shifted mid process. 

“The images were originally just going to focus on the color red, but it ended up going in a different direction; so now it’s still life’s and painting recreations of the Greek myth of Persephone,” Valle said.  “We’re given the freedom to do whatever we want, but it has to be our best work for the class.”

Senior Rowan Pruitt is majoring in both Photocommunications and Sociology.  This duality gives her thorough perspective on finals when it comes to exams and projects.

“It would make no sense to take a test in photography,” Pruitt said.  “I don’t know what that would even consist of.” 

“Projects can be time consuming and have a lot of moving parts,” Pruitt continued.  “Sometimes it’s nice to take a test because you know what to expect, but projects are most effective as far as knowledge goes.  You gain more competency in the material.”

Pruitt is currently working on a final project for Alternative Processes— a photography course that explores the early photographic processes. 

“I decided to do a project using salted paper prints, which is one of the earliest photographic processes.” Pruitt said.  “I’m making nine pieces— photograms with flowers.  Each piece takes about an hour to make including coating the paper, styling and exposing the image, and then developing it.”

Pruitt thinks the difficulty that comes with juggling finals isn’t necessarily about whether you have an exam to take or a project to complete.

“The difficult thing is that every single teacher thinks that their final is the most important thing in the world when we’re actively juggling 5-6 finals, projects and papers,” Pruitt said.  “It’s hard to make every single thing perfect, especially when you only feel passionate about some of the projects and finals.”

That said, Pruitt feels generally feels better about projects than exams.

“With tests, there is a tremendous amount of stress leading up to the test and then when you take the test and it’s over there’s honestly not a lot of relief; but when you’re working on a project and you finish and you feel great about it, you feel proud,” Pruitt said.  “There’s a final product that’s a part of you versus speed studying 20 pages of notes that you forget by Dec. 14.”