Now that Thanksgiving break is a thing of the past, and winter break is relatively right around the corner, most, if not all, of usare experiencing what I like to call "End-Of-Semester Senioritis".

Actually, most of us were experiencing this even before Thanksgiving break.

And it's dangerous. Really dangerous. All GPAs please find shelter. Take cover. Senioritis is striking.

With the semester winding down, it is easy to adopt the mindset that you no longer have any academic responsibilities, and this is definitely, definitely as far away from the truth as we could possibly get.

Here at Fordham, finals kick off on December 13th with foreign language exams, and its allllllll downhill from there. Until break, that is.

The point is, we definitely still have academic responsibilities, and important ones, at that. But senioritis sure does make it difficult to keep them in check.

Leading up to Thanksgiving break, it's always easy to get into the mentality that you've been working ~really~ hard and you ~really~ deserve a break. And honestly? We all do work really hard, and we do deserve to cut ourselves a break...... but it's a little bit impossible to do that during finals season. Raise your hand if you brought home your laptop, notebooks, etc. with good intentions, and then ended up doing little to none of your work over break, then found yourself in fight or flight mode Sunday night.

Me too.

Personally, I went home for Thanksgiving break with this mentality that I could afford to take those few days to myself and not worry about anything academics-related, because it was in the back of my mind that we'd be going home for the end of the semester soon. I was very much mistaken.

As college students, we have constant responsibilities, whether they be academic, social, personal, familial... the list goes on. The point is, we have a lot of responsibilities, and it can get difficult to keep priorities straight. We are constantly working, and even when we finish work, there is always more work to be done. It can definitely start to feel like a never-ending cycle of stress, and the worst part is that even when we really, REALLY deserve and need a break, we sometimes truly cannot reward ourselves with one.

Right now, I know I am not only speaking for myself when I say we have been working so incredibly hard for the past few weeks, and it has been absolutely exhausting. There have been days so jam-packed with work that it feels like there isn't even enough time to get an actual night of sleep. AND THERE LITERALLY ISN'T ENOUGH TIME TO GET AN ACTUAL NIGHT OF SLEEP! That being said, YEAH, we deserve a break. But can we have one? No, because guess what! Finals are right around the corner.

For me, the only break I can really have truly can't extend more than an hour or so.There is so much to be done at all times that wasting any more time than that is actually detrimental.

The thing is, though, how do professors and universities not realize the incredible amount of stress and pressure they are placing on their students? There are people in my life who find themselves skipping meals and not sleeping because they do not have time to do so. Is that really how universities believe they are going to lead their students to thrive? By allowing them to be starving and sleep deprived due to the ridiculous amount of work?

If you ask me, I think not.

But for now, all we can is look forward to winter break and keep telling ourselves we only have a few more weeks to go.