Writing Post #6
I cherish my morning walks across campus. While I am in no way a morning person, I can’t help but take in the crisp morning air and the quietness of campus. The energy of campus on my morning walks is very different from the energy right at 11:50 as I walk to my noon class. At that time campus is packed to the brim full of people as it's a passing period and the energy of campus is vibrant, a large contrast to the energy I feel in the morning. But this week the energy of campus isn’t peaceful and calm or vibrant and busy, rather it’s quite depressing. It’s almost as if I can feel the tension, stress, and anxiety in the air mixed with a tinge of burnout, a glaring reminder that it's finals week.
College students during finals week are “supposed” to be sleep deprived spending hours in the library living on ramen, but they also are “supposed” to be taking study breaks and taking care of their mental health. In reality, the latter simply is an impossible task. In a world where GPA really is everything, it’s easy to put one’s own well-being second. Being overworked is praised. It’s a competition with myself of how long I can spend studying. Drinking an unhealthy amount of energy drinks while forcing myself to pull two all-nighters in a row is praised, a clear contrast between the colorful mental health brochures the university sends. I simply can’t be a perfect student while taking care of my mental health. All the work students do in the semester means nothing if they don’t do well on their finals. It’s insane that months of hard work don’t matter if students don’t do well on an assignment or exam. The pressure on students is insurmountable, leading to a sense of severe burnout.
The way the higher education system is set up forces students to be overworked and burnt out. The mental health initiatives pushed by universities are simply to boost their image. It’s impossible to be both a good student and take care of oneself when the system is broken. The system sets students up for failure and until it’s changed students like myself will continue to find themselves burnout and overstressed every finals week.