[originaltext] Now you’ve only been there this one semester so this is your

Now you’ve only been there this one semester so this is your first experience with students undergoing the pressure of finals, right? I mean I was an undergraduate for four years in New York University(NYU)and I went through finals for 8 terms, 9 counting this one. NYU has a high pressure academic environment. That’s why I first started this program.
    When I was at NYU, my first exposure to the dogs, being brought to help relieve the pressure of finals, was in those of my sophomore or junior year and our building for a stress day. They had just an hour a week you could have a puppy and it was so simple and easy and unique to put on and it drew a lot of attention. It worked truly well. So when I was hired here, I really wanted to expand the program, do it on a much larger scale.
    How did it work? The way it actually works is we worked with a therapy dog organization called Dog-Bones. So what we do is actually in October, you know, at the height of mid-terms of task. We had both 60 dogs at a time coming in, a total of maybe 12-16 people over a 2-day-period.
    Some students like to pat the dogs and stay right up on them and especially ones that have dogs at their home or dog people, and someone just sit around and talk with each other and take pictures and do whatever they want to do, but even those people that aren’t really patting the dogs are still having fun. It’s still part of a really fun environment.
    I absolutely believe it is effective for anything. It’s why they do it in hospitals and in elementary schools. In general, having any kind of break from studying during really stressful periods like midterms and finals is necessary. Taking a half hour out of that, walking around, coming downstairs, completely changing your mindset into something different is really effective in combating some of that stress.
    Dogs were really really good. They were very good and they loved their bellies rubbed and they loved getting treats from the kids. Or maybe we can persuade Congress to allow some dogs on the Florida House, or the Senate and settle those people down.
20. What was the purpose of the stress day of New York University?
21. What do students do in the program?
22. What method is effective in combating study stress?