I am writing this for my fellow students, because you all know how dearly we love to commiserate. I'm also writing this for those of my friends who are still in high school and think they have it rough. Just you wait, buttercup. Just you wait. Now those of you who are Cascade kids, its true, you will be better prepared than most of your peers. To start with. You lose that advantage pretty darn quick, trust me. As soon as you fly through the preliminaries, you are in the same boat as everyone else. And that boat is sinking. And there are no life jackets. Oh yeah.. and it is sinking in lava, cause water? Thats just too darn easy.
I miss having free time. I know, it seems like hyperbole to say that I literally have no free time, cause after all, how am I writing this without the free time to do it? Well.. I should be sleeping, so I can get up for my 8 o clock class tomorrow, but the melatonin hasn't kicked in, and I'm just too wired. Therefore, I present to you, my rant. To most of you students this won't come as a surprise, but I feel like it might to some of the older and younger crowd reading this. College professors expect you to put in 2 hours of your own time for every hour of class time. (Because they all think that their class is the most important class of your college career) That means that, for instance, for my Shakespeare class, which meets twice a week for two hours, I should be putting in 8 hours of time outside of class, just generally reading and studying. Now when you add that to the 4 hours I'm sitting in class, that means "it is recommended" that I spend 12 hours per week on just this class. Now multiply that by five, and you'll begin to see why they say that college is a full time job. Also, this "recommended study time" is not a maximum. Just in case you wondered. Just the "recommended" to pass the class. And college damn sure doesn't pay overtime.
In fact, you're paying to be there. Except that you don't have money to pay for anything but ramen and peanut butter. So you get a job. Cause that's something you have time for. Now I'm extremely blessed that I usually have a lot of down time at my job, so I'm able to get some reading and homework in while I'm there. Honestly, if it weren't for that, I don't think I would be making it through this term. So, with a job, you're adding another.. oh, 20-25 hours a week in which you are busy. If you're keeping a count, we're at 85 hours a week now, just between school and work.
And then there's sleep. Glorious sleep. College students love sleep, and I'm no exception, although sleep tends to evade me most nights. So we'll take a conservative estimate here, and say you get 6 hours of sleep a night, instead of the recommended 8. Thats another 42 hours a week taken away from your free time fund. A total now of 127 hours a week.
So, with just the basics calculated in, out of the 168 hours available in a week, including the weekend, you now have 41 available. This seems like a lot until you consider that you still have to eat, shower, clean, cook, drive to and from school and work, get dressed, etc.
So yes, we like to complain. In fact, I think with college students, its on the level of an olympic sport. Between any two given students, there will always be an unspoken competition of "who is more miserable".
Student 1:"Well, I'm taking 16 credits this term, and working, and playing volleyball"
Student 2: "Oh yeah, well, I'm taking 18 credits, all upper division, and one of them is an 8 o'clock class. Oh, and I'm working 2 jobs."
Okay, so its not always as overt as that, but the competition is there, trust me.
In closing, my advice:
To those of you who are not yet in college, I love you dearly and I don't mean to scare you away from college, because trust me, there are good times, and it is worth it in the end. (at least that's what they keep telling me, but seeing as I'm not at the end yet, I'll have to take their word for it) The camaraderie between college students is something you will not experience anywhere else. It stems from the fact that we are all perpetually stressed and miserable and sleep-deprived, and somehow we are able to accept each other in spite of that. But as a warning, do not come to college expecting it to be all parties and freedom and wonderfulness.
To my fellow students: I feel your pain. Keep up the good fight. We signed up for this, remember? I can't remember why just at the moment, but I feel certain that we chose this. Hang in there. Drink a Red Bull. Do what you can and push through it. And take deep breaths...
On the other hand, maybe "Arts and Crafts is all I need. I'll take calligraphy and then I'll make a fake degree"
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