I Love the Smell of Coffee

I love the smell of coffee, but at 3 am? Staying up until 3 in the morning to finish that paper that has been on the syllabus since the beginning of the semester, or studying for that really difficult test that requires an A in order to make up for some of the slack you let loose in the beginning of the semester can only mean one thing, the semester is ending and you are in frantic mode.

Every semester is the same story. In the beginning you get the syllabus telling you what assignments, deadlines and tests you have. If projects are not on the syllabus your professor gives you a lot of time in advance to prepare. So why is everyone always struggling with school work? Well I think we call it “Life”.

Unlike High School, college students don’t just have school work. Unlike professionals, they don’t just have to wake up, grab a newspaper, fill your to go coffee mug and head to work every morning. In today’s economical crises, most students get the pleasure of multi-tasking. In 2003 the number of working students reached 78 percent. And I am not just talking two hours a day or 20 hours a week. Many of them work and go to school full time.

When I was at my freshman orientation at Sac State a professor talked to the group of incoming freshman. This whole experience was more traumatizing then helpful. I barely remember anything of this seminar as important. What I do remember is how difficult my next four years were going to be. She told us studying, reading and working on assignments is the same as having a full time job. In order for us to be successful we were told we would have to work 10 hours a day, 2 hours for each class we took. As I enter into my senior year, I know understand the validity of what was being said four years ago.

Not only does work get in the way of school, but student procrastination is one of the biggest obstacles to overcome to reach a stress-free environment.

November seems to make life even worse. Students always have a lot more work to do at the end of the semester and these long hours cause students to become stressed, overworked and eventually sick. Lack of sleep can cause your body to become weak and more susceptible to illness. Swine flu is such a big concern especially for students as they are more likely to get infected because of their age. The doctor recommendation is for students to be take it easy. Yeah right. Not in this lifetime.

I haven’t gotten sick yet this semester, but all my work is mounting. I have a 10 page research paper due in a little over a week and a debate after Thanksgiving both on the same subject: raising income taxes on the wealthy. Boring! I have another presentation plus 3 more big tests before the semester is over. All of these things have been in the back of my mind since the beginning of the semester, but they were still in the future. Now the future is about to arrive. Yikes!

I have also been working more this semester as a nanny which has forced me to manage my time better. I fortunately do not have to work full time. Looking at how much time school work demands, I have developed respect for people who have to work to put themselves through college and take a full class load.

Even though this part of the semester is extremely stressful and causes many students to lose sleep and get sick, I know there is an upside to all this character building work. I will graduate, taking all my skills of staying up late, meeting deadlines and cramming for tests into the world of another unknown.