This article was originally written for FirstGenerationStudent.com, now a part of ImFirst.org.
With finals, papers and a litany of other assignments due just around the corner, it’s almost unreal just how fast this first semester of college has flown by. And, at this time of year, a different kind of pressure makes its grand entrance among college students around the country.
We’ve experienced pressure in high school, but what’s interesting is that this marvel unravels itself in an entirely new way at the collegiate level. It’s not the pressure to do drugs or engage in other forms of illicit behavior: I’m talking about students competing in terms of who’s having a harder time with assignments.
Finals season brings classes to a close, but during the the days leading up to it, in discussions everywhere, students find themselves competing against each other, trying to see who has more assignments due or who will be pulling more all-nighters in a single week.
This usually begins with someone complaining about some set of assignments. Someone will say something like “Oh! I’m going to be so busy with the two tests and paper I have due this week.” Someone else will hear this and it turns into a competition to see who has the most to do and the shortest amount of time to complete it all.
These situations reflect what’s common on college campuses today: caffeine, late nights and all-nighters become common occurrences. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
Refusing to Revel in Stress
I’ve found myself in the middle of these power struggles too, but rather than engage with them, I just listen to people try to glamorize themselves in the amount of work they have to do. I just don’t see how people can revel in such stress. It makes no sense to me. In fact, I’m here to tell you that it isn’t worth it, not from my experience, but from seeing everyone else around me suffer.
Several of my friends have told me that I’m doing my freshman year “right.” What that means, I’m still trying to figure out, but they mention that I manage to do everything I want and more. I’m taking my classes, working at the library, taking part in extracurricular activities, taking time to read and sleeping six to eight hours every single night. At first I thought that everyone else was the same way, but then I learned that this isn’t the case for most people.
That’s often because most people don’t have the self-discipline to put their work before their play. A lot of my friends like to reward their own work with a show (or two) on Netflix. That only slows them down and postpones the work they should have been doing instead.
Getting Things Done While Still Getting Sleep
If you’re already a college student, you need to realize that sacrificing sleep for the sake of being able to tell someone that you slept only two hours so you could write a paper is immature. In order to get things done and get adequate sleep, you need to do several things.
First, you need to get over “FOMO,” or the “fear of missing out.” There’s always something to do on campus other than class work, but you need to ask yourself if you can afford to spend an hour engaging in small talk rather than writing two pages of a paper that’s due soon.
Second, it is imperative that you are disciplined in doing your work before playing games. Part of this is mastering how to get over FOMO, but the other half is learning when it is okay to reward yourself with some “you” time. I’m not saying that you should completely eliminate breaks, but they shouldn’t happen after every hour or half hour of work.
Third, sleep, and sleep a lot. There’s nothing better than waking up early to go to class after a restful night full of sleep. Ignore statements that make it seem like staying up late is something to be envious of because it’s not. There’s no other answer to it: no sleep sucks, a lot.
College adds a new degree of social pressures: now, apart from illicit substance use or other “old” pressures, there are new stresses that add challenge to college life. If you’re serious about being in college to work hard for an education, then do it.
Besides, when you do get those rewards, they’ll be that much sweeter because you’ll know that not only did you really deserve them, you’ll also realize that the paper you just finished isn’t due for another week and a half. Then, you’ll have time to do other things.