Finals week is usually the most stressful time of year for most college students. There is, however, light at the end of the tunnel, as students will receive a four-week break at the end of the week. Now to get through that week. In preparation, Jackalope tapped Creative Writing and Literature Department Co-chair Matt Donovan and Academic Advisor Elecia Hadley to share some helpful information for finals. This is the advice we received: Survive the week. Students are burned out and most of your professors realize that, as Donovan put it,  “Don’t throw in the towel early. Earn the break—it’ll make the holidays that much sweeter.” Sleep is important. “Don’t cram two days in a row, space your sleep and study,” Hadley says. Know your class. Each course requires something different of students. Know what is needed to get the grade you want. Recognize your own study habits. Know what works best for you. If you need to move around every so often, do some push ups or jumping jacks to get some energy out. Use study groups. They can be really helpful and studying with a group of people can make getting through those late nights a little bit easier. Prepare for exams. Knowing your professor can help you predict what might be on your final. “From my own college years, I can remember lots of milling around in the dorm hallways, trying to figure out what would the exam might look like, and what would be emphasized,” Donovan says. “Then, there was always lots of pizza. Pizza has to help too, yeah?” Be aware of your testing area. According to Hadley, “Studying in an environment that resembles your testing area will make you more successful. For example, you will do better if you study in a...

With registration underway, SFUAD’s Academic Advising is holding a series of workshops to help students pick their classes for the spring semester. Jackalope spoke to Academic Advisor Elecia Hadley, who offered these five tips: Attend the registration workshops; not everyone will be able to meet one on one with Academic Advising. Students should check and see if they have a hold on their accounts. If there is a hold on an account, the student should talk to Jeremy Hadley, school cashier. Look over the courses being offered before the registration date. Students should look at their degree audits to make educated choices when picking classes. Degree audits can be accessed through the student portal under the registration tab. Take the recommended classes. Stick to the plan; it was put in place for a reason. During the week of registration, there will be a sign-up sheet for students wanting to meet with the advisors, however space and time is limited. Students who attend the workshops will have a better understanding of their education goals and the classes they need to take. Registration starts the week of Nov. 10; the senior class will be able to add classes on the Nov. 10, juniors on Nov. 11, sophomores on Nov. 12, and freshmen on Nov. 13  ...

Cold and flu season are making their way around again. As midterms wind down, stress levels can be higher than usual, leaving immune systems vulnerable. Jackalope spoke to, Anne-Marie Lehmann, certified nurse practitioner and school nurse, about prevention methods as well as what to do if one were to get sick. These were the five most emphasized pieces of advice from the nurse: Take Vitamin C. One Thousand  milligrams a day will help support weakened or strained immune systems. Wash hands regularly. Get Enough Rest. Seven to nine hours of sleep will keep students healthy. Eat a well balanced diet full of fruits and vegetables. Realize the first symptoms of what may be a cold and go to the nurse within 24 hours.   Lehmann believes that chicken soup is magic, and provides it in her care packages for sick students. The care packages also include items like oatmeal and cough drops. The nurse thinks that students have the right to homeopathic medicines as well as pharmaceutical. If students are really sick, there is a room and a bed right next to Lehmann’s office. She also has humidifiers for students experiencing respiratory problems. She encourages students to come and visit her if they are not feeling well. The nurse’s office is open Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday from 10 a.m to 6 p.m .   ...

Complaints about the wifi on campus are a common refrain for SFUAD students. Although students received an email Sept. 2 asking for patience and promising a remedy for internet issues, student sentiment remains largely unchanged regarding connection issues. Jackalope spoke with the Information Technology Department several times since the start of the semester. Department employees maintain there is enough bandwidth and capacity to accommodate students on the network. “Students are averaging 250 megabytes per second a day. The full bandwidth is 600 megabytes per second, and students are nowhere near it,” Joshua Billiter, the residential network system administrator, says. “The fact that it’s sluggish is because of network engineering conflicts that we have since worked out.” In other terms, at the time of various interviews with IT, 1,218 different devices were connected to the school’s internet. That number represents Xboxes, Playstations, computers, phones, tablets—any device connected to the hardwire internet in the dorms, and anything else with any wifi connectivity. The hardwire internet, IT student employee Dylan Marlow says, “generally does not make internet faster because we give you 100 megabytes per second in your room, and typically a computer doesn’t work that fast.” However, students who “game a lot,” he says, may find use for the hardwire, as it’s “more reliable.” IT says it is finding that often problems faced by students are individual user issues unrelated to the campus wifi. “It can be the student’s computer, or how many applications are running,” Jeff Pearce, IT director says. “Students can be exhausting their own resources, and until we come and visit students, their problems may not be fixed.” As such, IT asks for students to submit a work order, and IT will set a time between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. “to do a room call, and see what students are physically...