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Wellness > Mental Health

An Open Letter to the Professors Who Won’t Cut Me A Break

Grace Catlett
Allie Bausinger
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at PSU chapter.

Hey Teachers,

 

I’m a senior graduating in May, which you all know. Most of your students in the class are seniors and our top priorities are graduating and finding a job. I wish you all would understand that I am sick of taking quizzes on information that is irrelevant for me to memorize at this point. I am sick of being assigned seven page papers on stuff that is busy work and useless for the real world. For my capstone class teachers, I am happy to work on the important projects that will benefit me in the long run. However, please don’t assign me extra work on top of that to stress me out and waste the time I could be putting into applying for jobs.   

 

You say not to worry about these assignments, yet you assign them. It is hard to not worry about them when they are a part of my grade. I still want to do well in my last semester.  Even though we are graduating and want to focus on applying for jobs, I still want to do well in classes without being overwhelmed. Us seniors are all anxious and excited to get jobs and graduate, so don’t make us more anxious and let us be excited. I never thought my second semester of my senior year would be the hardest, and I am only taking four classes.  

 

I wish you would understand how stressful senior year is for all of us. It shouldn’t be all about work.  Yes, I want you to challenge me with projects and things that will help me in the real world, but I also want time to spend with friends and relax. Myself and many others haven’t found jobs yet, and you all might not realize that. Please understand that we are overwhelmed, have written too many papers and can’t write any more!

 

I want to thank the teachers that extend deadlines and don’t grade hard on the unnecessary assignments. Instead, they give helpful critiques back. I also want to thank the teachers who challenge me in class and make sure I am working to my full potential.  Please stop worrying me with the 15 page papers and shorten them to five. Stop making me have to pull all nighters to study for that test that I will probably forget the information on in a week. There are no tests in the real world.

 

Sincerely,

Your stressed, overwhelmed and worried student 

Grace Catlett is a senior at Penn State University where she is pursuing a Public Relations major with a minor in Recreation, Parks, and Tourism Management. Since her freshman year, she has been very involved with her sorority, Delta Gamma. She was the director of social events for Delta Gamma and loves event planning! While she loves social media and public relations, her dream job is to become a wedding planner. She also loves fashion and is a TV show enthusiast.
Allie Bausinger is a Penn State University graduate who majored in Print/Digital Journalism with a minor in English. She is from "outside Philadelphia," which in her case is Yardley, Pennsylvania. Allie is looking for full-time employment in writing, editing, fact-checking, podcasting, and other areas of the journalism and writing fields.