[Online Exclusive]: Students sweat off stress during finals

When he goes to the Wooden Center, first-year business economics
student Jack Zhou lets out his extra energy.

Not for fun. But so he can sit down and concentrate for
finals.

“I come here to get rid of that restless feeling so I can
actually study. After exercising, you’re much more
focused,” Zhou said.

To accommodate students who want to exercise during finals week,
the Wooden Center will be extending its hours to 2 a.m. Sunday
through Wednesday of finals week.

“By offering additional hours, Wooden Center will help
students prepare for finals by providing space for them to study or
work out,” said Dennis Koehne, Wooden Center facility
manager.

Opening Wooden Center past its typical closing time will allow
students to have a place to do what they need in order to mentally
and physically get ready for their upcoming exams, he said.

Students said they were pleased to have the opportunity to go to
the gym at times that suited them.

“During finals, my schedule is so packed that it’s
hard to always come during the normal hours,” said
second-year biochemistry student Ted Chen.

He said that opening the Wooden Center until 2 a.m. provides
students flexibility in the times they can study or exercise.

“I wouldn’t want to come by right before or after a
final, and the extra hours would allow me to come at a more
convenient time,” Chen said.

Koehne said that Wooden Center has looked for ways it can assist
students during finals week and extending opening hours turned out
to be an easy, viable option.

He said with study rooms and gym equipment near each other,
students could easily hop onto the gym equipment to re-energize
themselves when they started feeling tired from hovering over
books.

As part of the extended hours, Wooden Center is also putting on
a Bruin Study-A-Thon program, which provides free 15-minute yoga
sessions and free five-minute chair massages from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m.
Monday and Tuesday.

The Wooden Center will also host review sessions for
Physiological Science 5 so students could see it as a place they
could study, Koehne said.

In addition to the review sessions, the Pyramid Room and three
conference rooms will be converted to quiet study spaces that will
help relieve the overflow of students who could not find room to
study in libraries.

While the Wooden Center’s additional hours may encourage
students to exercise more during finals week, most students go
there and work out not in order to stay in shape, but to have fun,
Koehne said.

“We don’t see any bump in the number of people
exercising. Most of the extra visitors come for the racquetball and
basketball courts, where they channel their built-up energy into a
fun activity,” he said.

By letting their tensions loose, students better prepare
themselves to sit down and study afterward, he said.

Though the Wooden Center is offering its extended hours only
until Wednesday of finals week, Koehne said that in the past the
number of students who come to the Wooden Center starts dropping
after Wednesday.

“Many students are finished with finals by Wednesday, and
we anticipate the people here Wednesday night to be quite
sparse,” he said.

He said that students who have finals on Thursday and Friday of
finals week typically have their rooms to themselves since their
roommates have left after finishing their finals.

Others said that while they appreciate the extra hours the
Wooden Center is offering, getting a good night’s rest works
best in curing stress.

“I don’t know if exercising is the best thing to do
before finals. Sleeping works better when one’s tired,”
said second-year world arts and culture student Nicole Isaacs.

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