As a hard working student it felt awarding to be able to exempt my finals at the end of the semester, due to my hard work and consistency throughout the semester. To have that privilege taken away abruptly was disheartening and took away my incentive to maintain good grades and attendance throughout the academic year. I am sure my peers agree that the decision to no longer allow students to exempt finals was not made in our best interest, and will hurt our grades in the long term. But that does not have to be the case, Cobb County Board of Education can reverse their decision and allow us to exempt finals so long as we meet the criteria.