We all know what it feels like to endure the busy student life we hate and love so much. I had the opportunity to walk around Wilfrid Laurier University and ask students what it’s like to walk in the shoes of students at their busiest times and here’s what I got.
You have to force yourself to schedule time to take a shower.
Scheduling time to take a shower may not seem like it’s necessary, but when the wheels start turning you’re going to need that time to steam things out (pun intended).
You sleep in your makeup from the day before.
When taking off your makeup at night becomes a chore instead of a ‘soothing me time’ experience. For the girls who get caught up in this sticky mess, try wetting a cloth in warm water and putting it over your face. This will help remove makeup and allow your body to calm down and prepare for sleep!
You hear the closing time bells at the library for the first time.
When you hear those bells chiming at the library, telling you to go home, you know your life is at its busiest. If you plan on staying in one place for a long period of time, remember to take study breaks. Walks, a good stretch, or an episode of That ‘70s Show are some of my favourite ideas for a quick little calm down.
You start to combine breakfast and lunch into brunch because you can’t afford the time or money to have both.
When your meals start to mix together because of a lack of time and money spent on grocery shopping and cooking in general. Prepare yourself for these busy weeks by grocery shopping the week before to limit a food crisis in the middle of midterm madness.
When your backpack is so heavy that you justify not going to the gym because of it.
Your back ends up taking a toll when you have three midterms and three textbooks that need to accompany you to the library. Thanks to laptops, this problem can be solved with e-textbooks and online notes. If you are really in love with hard copy textbooks, try taking the time to stretch as a study break or before you go to sleep.
When doing laundry becomes spraying Febreze on your clothes before you leave.
Whether you’re busy or just too lazy, laundry is never a fun activity. When you’re busy, this task seems even harder and your desire to stay clean might get dropped from your list of priorities. Some students even reported spraying Febreze to keep the illusion of feeling clean to yourself and others.
You enter a world where time does not exist.
The only sense of time that exists is the time when your assignments are due and when your midterms/exams start. Other than that, everything else is a blur. Your only purpose for the day is to wake up early and study late so that you can pack as much as you can into one day. A couple of students in the business program at Laurier shared that they stayed in Lazardis Hall for hours working on their group assignments. Once they finish and walked out of the doors they were surprised to realize there was no other people in the building. In fact, the building had been closed for hours. This is only one of the examples students expressed to me how time is never on a student’s side.
When your social life is non-existent.
There is no time for a social life when you are a busy student. Even seeing your roommates can be extremely limited during this time. A tip that will help you and everyone else is smiling. It has been proven that the actual act of smiling has a positive effect on you just as much as it does on others! If Kanye can do it, so can you.
Thanks to all the students at Laurier who added their personal busy habitats into this article. Remember, even in times of craziness, taking care of yourself is first and foremost, no matter what your to-do list looks like. Take care and good luck to all the busy students out there.