Go to college they said. It’d be fun they said. I certainly got my advice from the wrong people because the current perception I have of college is anything but fun. Stressful and overwhelming, are more accurate characteristics of my experience.
There are just not enough hours in the day for me to possibly get everything done. I look at my planner and I try to strategically plan out my week and set deadlines for myself, but I honestly don’t know why I even bother.
I have always tried to be an organized person, with my work at least but, somehow my room and my life slipped under the radar. For some reason, though, I am now failing in all three aspects.
My room is messy, which is probably one of the key reasons why no one has signed the lease for the apartment next year and why there are constantly people coming to look at it. But, besides my room being messy, my life and my work schedule are equally out of order.
Getting enough sleep every night is almost out of the question. Between classes, projects, the newspaper, work and practice, I am lucky I even get four hours a night.
It makes it very difficult to stay on top of assignments, appointments or meetings when I can’t even keep track of what day it is because the nights are blurring together.
I don’t enjoy staying up late. It’s not like I am staying up all night drinking or hanging out with my friends – I am doing catch-up and keep-up for all my classes and work assignments.
This is the typical “college struggle” all students experience, especially in their senior year because the workload keeps piling on and the assignments and projects keep getting harder and harder.
But for me, it intensifies because of my narcolepsy. I don’t even know if I am awake right now; for all I know, this could be a dream and I could have a pet unicorn in the room beside me.
I can handle the pressure and the difficulty of the work, I just can’t find enough time in the day to get it all done. Currently, I am taking two capstone classes – my thesis and my campaigns – both equally as overwhelming and stressful.
Every night that I am working on the projects for those classes I just keep reminding myself, “next semester will be easy, and I will get to finally breathe.” It obviously soothes me in no way shape or form, but it’s the effort that counts.
College has been fun. I am not going to lie, it has been an experience and I am truly grateful I had the opportunity to live it, I just would never want to do it again. Mentally, I would probably be committed and physically, I would probably be 800 pounds from all the stress eating. Thank goodness for lacrosse or I would be the largest woman on campus right now.
I honestly have no idea how I have survived almost four years of college, but it will benefit me in the long run – at least it better. The debts of the experience will be haunting my every dream for the next 40 years, so the stress and torture better have been worth it.
No pressure at all.
BECKY HILKER
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