What's the point of a final exam?

I'm sure that this is something asked by many students, but what is the point of a final exam?

I understand that it is the capstone idea; you have learned the subject for the past 15 or so weeks, so we are now going to see what you know. However, it is one of the worst ideas out there. A final exam shows how much you can remember of a specific subject matter at a certain point in time, being affected by whatever else is going on in your life. It's a way for your professor to judge you, to give you a letter that is supposed to show how well, in their mind, you understand the subject matter. The funny thing about this is when you ask someone who took a big exam earlier in the day to explain the subject matter, they have usually forgotten many of the details already.

A final exam isn't just an exam. It's also a big portion of your final grade. One of the classes I took this semester gave 45% of it's final grade to the final exam. 45 percent! I don't get how you can put so much weight of this grade on this one examination. It really doesn't make sense to me.

As opposed to exams, projects and papers show the professor what you know and what you know about the topic. In fact, most the time, I feel that I learn more about the course when doing a paper or project than when taking the exam. I think all professors should consider going down the paper/project route rather than the exam route because then they can evaluate their teaching style based on what the students understand rather than if they incorrectly bubbled in "A" instead of "C' on the Scantron sheet.

In a perfect world, I would like to get rid of examinations all together. However, that isn't something that is feasible...at least in my one year remaining in college. What I would like to do is bring a motion to the Student Government Association in the fall on this matter. I would like to have SGA pass this motion, which would be a recommendation to the Faculty Senate that no one examination can count as more than 25% of the final grade. By making it no more than 25% of the final grade, you're still giving the students a fighting chance of doing OK in the course AND you're giving the professor more of a chance to understand what you have learned so that they can judge you properly when giving you your grade. A paper or project would not be affected by this recommendation.

Exams are the easy way out for the professors, but don't truly reflect one's understanding of the subject matter. Let's work together and limit their effect on our academic experience.