1. You have to live with the regret of not doing any work over reading week.
Each day of reading week you told yourself “I’ll start tomorrow!” but now the final is tomorrow and you have no choice but to start. There’s nothing worse than doing work on a time limit knowing you had an entire week to do it.
2. You have to get back on that schoolwork grind.
You have six weeks of class left and no time to waste. It’s like waking up from a really nice dream and realizing you slept through your exam – you have to jump out of bed with no time to brush your teeth, throw some pants on and run out the door.
3. You have to deal with professors who insist on calling it week eight.
PSA to all the profs in this world: reading week should not be assigned a numerical value on the syllabus. I have enough to keep track of without having to remind myself that you numbered everything weirdly every time I check which assignment is due next.
4. You have at least one midterm.
It’s not enough that you have to go back to doing schoolwork after a week of rest; you obviously have at least one midterm waiting for you when you come back, and it’s probably worth a fair amount of your mark, too. It’s the cherry on top of the sundae you never ordered.
5. You have to find a summer job.
Forget about that pile of schoolwork you have to do, you also have to convince someone to hire you for the summer. This is especially horrible if you’re looking for a job to boost your resume and not just a cashflow opportunity.
6. Your social media is filled with vacation pictures.
You can’t open up Facebook or Instagram without seeing pictures of everyone’s reading week adventures. Even worse if you spent your reading week lying on your couch instead of the beach and don’t even have your own photos to look through.