We wake up at 8:20 a.m. most mornings. Next, we groggily turn on our Keurig because coffee is necessary for survival through our two classes, two meetings and two papers due by midnight. Our rooms have a whiteboard or calendar located somewhere in it and it’s guaranteed there is very little white space showing. We can usually be seen running through campus unable to stop and say hi to friends, and we relish those mornings when we can actually sleep in or when we receive that beautiful email alert saying “meeting will be cancelled for Friday morning.” We are the over-involved and under-caffeinated students of our respective universities, and we just really need a nap (or a vacation… preferably both).
Simple things seem more like a chore. Yes, you realize that personal hygiene is important and you know that rocking the greasy-hair look can only be pulled off for so long, but some days you are just too busy. Once you drag yourself home at night and finally have a millisecond of free time, all you want to do is collapse on your bed and take mindless Buzzfeed quizzes that tell you which doughnut flavor you should marry or which Disney character is your spirit animal. You do not have the energy or motivation to stand in a shower and douse your body with water, dry off, blowdry your hair, change clothes and then realize it’s midnight and you need to go to sleep. I mean, I guess you’ll shower, but you probably won’t like it.
You forget to eat all day because you’re constantly on the go. So when 5:30 p.m. rolls around and you’re a malnourished college student who feels like their intestines are eating each other, you order Jimmy John’s and are almost satisfied with your bland Turkey Tom. Food is love, food is life (no seriously, you need it to live). My advice is to try not to skip meals as much. It’s hard to squeeze a meal in sometimes, but your body will thank you, and you’ll probably be less cranky for the ten million meetings you have to attend later that day.
You can’t afford time for a love life. Or at least that’s what you’re telling yourself so you feel less bad about that cute boy not texting you back. Or the fact that the last boy who pursued you now has a girlfriend even though you’re pretty sure he was single when he texted you at 1 a.m. last Friday. But it’s whatever, right? Your resume is ballin’ and you’ve secured multiple letters of recommendation for the future and you still haven’t lost your mind yet. Your attention is obviously a valuable asset, and you can’t just throw it around to someone who isn’t chasing it. And yes — I mean chasing because you’re once again probably running to get somewhere and not be late.
You bump into approximately 3,000 people per day across campus who know you and you can’t remember how you know them. Is she from the honors society? Your sorority? Your pre-professional club? Your online class that you attend the live lectures for because you don’t have time to watch it later? Wait, did she even wave at you or at the girl behind you? It doesn’t matter because you don’t have time to stop and chat. Just Facebook stalk her later and you’ll probably remember where you’ve met her.
Being involved in college has many rewarding perks and will ultimately open many opportunities for your future network, career and relationships. Just be mindful that taking on too much can result in severe cases of FOMO, stress-eating Midnight Cookies and possibly a loss of friends due to lack of showering. For all of you overachievers out there, go you! We’ve made it this far and still find the time to get rowdy at The Swamp on gamedays. But if it ever gets to be too much and you need a little Netflix in your life, don’t hesitate; all nine seasons of The Office are always streaming, waiting and ready for you to neglect your responsibilities for just once.
Photo credit: www.brightoncollege.edu