MSU students and teachers use ‘workload study’ to help students prepare for finals

MANKATO, Minn. (KEYC) - Students are enduring the elements walking to MSU’s library in preparation for everyone’s favorite holiday...college finals.

MSU biology professor Keenan Hartert released a study earlier this year, analyzing how students should manage their time to prioritize their grades.

Hartert said, “Number one significant data was, if you don’t go to class at least 90% of the time, you enter this really downturn population. One of the key associations with attendance and its own significant factor on its own was - if you’re over 20 hours a week working, you enter this statistical danger zone.”

252 students were surveyed, which showed better grades while working 20 hours a week or less.

And 66% of students showed better grades when coming to every nine out of 10 classes.

Hartert says students that can do both attain intangible qualities.

“[Those students] are super resilient and can organize and work in teams [and] come back from failures. They are the ones that are the champions of this whole thing,” Hartert explained.

One of those champions, boasting a 4.0, is MSU senior Kaylee Plahn. She tends to work 25 hours a week, but changes it up come crunch time.

Plahn said, “Like finals week, I was like ‘I’m going to spend the majority of my time studying.’ So, I gave my work the availability [and] I lessened it. I could focus on studying for that week cause I’m going to have the rest of next semester to work.”

The skills in managing time come with failures that Plahn knows all too well, however. It’s those setbacks that propel her forward.

She said, “I think it was important that I went through all of those trials because I’m going to need them when I am a physical therapist and in my future career.”

Not everyone can hit that 4.0 mark like Plahn, but if she were to give a piece of advice, it would be, “If you really care about what you’re doing in the future and you really want to see yourself get there, you’re going to have to have some grit and resilience and you’re going to have to push through to achieve those goals.”

For Hartert and Plahn, it’s that grit and resilience that will land students the jobs they’re searching for.

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