To crush Duke or to crush the midterm?

The UNC-Duke basketball game is the most highly anticipated game of the year for some students — so much so that their studies can be forgotten.

In the past there have been wild festivities on campus and in the Chapel Hill area, often leaving students worn out and sleep-deprived the morning after. But the game falls during midterm season, and many classes are giving exams Thursday.

Rudi Colloredo-Mansfeld, an anthropology professor holding an exam Thursday, said he thinks some students might not perform as well due to choosing the game over studying, but other students will get studying done early.

“Something I have noticed is that I’ve received more questions about the exam over the weekend than I normally would have, and today I realize why they were being so proactive,” Colloredo-Mansfeld said.

Misha Becker, a linguistics professor, said she will give an exam in class on Thursday.

“I make my syllabus based on what I need to do to cover the material in the class, since that is actually my job, and I don’t look at the sports schedule,” she said.

Becker said she took a vote in the class to see how many students wanted to reschedule the exam, and the majority of students voted to keep the exam when it was. She said it was not feasible for her to reschedule the exam due to a variety of constraints.

“I have to cover material in a certain order. I have to make sure I cover things in time for the students to be able to use the information for assignments they have to turn in,” she said.

Derek Fulton, a sophomore chemistry major, said he was not happy when he found out that he had an exam in his statistics class.

“My reaction when I found out that I had an exam the day after the Duke game was definitely one of disgust,” he said.

Despite his disgust, Fulton said he doesn’t think professors were scheduling exams the day after the Duke game on purpose.

“That would be pretty sadistic, but I do think they maybe could take into account this amazing tradition we have here at UNC. And I know it’s a lot to ask to work into their academic programming, but I think they could do a slightly better job, be a little more considerate, you know?” he said.

Fulton said he expects to score significantly lower on his exam than he normally would.

“Yeah, I would say I’ll probably be scoring at least 10 to 20 points lower on the exam as a direct result of the Duke game being on before. Two letter grades, I would estimate two letter grades,” he said.

Colloredo-Mansfeld said he once had to choose between watching the final installment of a murder mystery TV series and going to his adviser to ask questions about his exams.

“I needed to know the murderer more than I needed to press my doctoral advisor, and I suspected, again, that students were going to need to support Carolina more than they were going to need to impress me,” he said.

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