Now, being in my senior (and hopefully, last) year in college, I realize that “overworked” and “assignment overload” are understatements.
The stakes and expectations are suddenly much higher—the subjects and the professors have grown much more demanding, and even the extra-curricular activities have required more of our time, since some of us are now the organizations’ frontrunners.
Sometimes, I find myself zoning out in the middle of a class just to take in the entirety of what’s going on—and we’re not even halfway through the year yet.
Seeing my classmates’ and schoolmates’ exhausted faces, I know that I’m not alone in my belief that we may have bitten off more than we can chew.
When I was a freshman, it seemed like a great idea to join the organizations that reminded me of my high school years, or those that made promising pitches on how they can hone my talents or help me through the rest of my college academic life.
Back then, we were encouraged to join as many as we could. The operative word was “could”—meaning, those we could join and hang on to for four or maybe five years.
The school work becoming more intense is a given. It is inevitable for a student to feel that academic requirements become more and more difficult; that’s why it’s crucial to go easy on taking side jobs, because more often than not, one suffers from mismanagement of time and responsibility.
The irony
What’s ironic is that no matter how much of our time has already been consumed by our school work and extra activities, there are still those who find the time to squeeze in more work.
Some have chosen to continue working in the companies they trained with last summer, to juggle part-time jobs, and to join even more school organizations.
The truth is, we have a choice if we wanted things in our last year to be just like the last years.
We could have slacked off from doing our “harder” assignments, resigned from our organizations, or even declined promotion to a higher position.
As I asked around, I found out that the reason people stay with their organizations is not partial insanity, but true loyalty to their societies, willingness to change or help grow their organization, the growth and wisdom they’ve acquired, the fondness they’ve developed for the friends they’ve made, and the fact that this may well be their last chance to finally do what they’ve always wanted.
To most students, extra work is not just extra jobs, but outlets where they can breathe, relax, and be themselves.
They’ve come to realize that after all those years, they’ve finally found the confidence to master time management. Those who have held back their desires to perform once again on the school stage have finally decided to audition. Some who have always wanted to write for the school publication have tried. There are so many stories that would make you forget that this may be their last year in college.
To most of the seniors in college, this last year marks not only the end of their academic life, but the extra-curricular activities that come with it.
In the real world out there, few are lucky enough to be able to find the opportunity to do both their jobs and the things they’ve always wanted to do.
The extra activities are not always served on a silver platter. And maybe that’s why we take on more than we can really handle—we see college as our last chance to do our jobs as students and swing the extra work at the same time.
