In college, you quickly learn that the amount of work that is required of you is much more than in high school. In my first week of college courses, I had enough schoolwork to make any person crazy. Now to be fair, my major is designed to make students want to rip their hair out, but college in general is a lot of work.
One thing that I definitely did not account for when I started college was ever having to stay up an entire night in order to do work or study. In high school, I got by on studying a night or two before. In college, I have to pull consecutive all-night study sessions to even stay afloat in my upper-level science courses. With my extensive knowledge and practice in all-night study sessions, I have learned a few things about the "stages" of the night, for lack of a better term. And who better to showcase these stages than Pawnee's greatest.
Determination
Leslie says this better than anyone, except you sadly aren't preparing for the "Chamber of Secrets." You and your friend or study group decide to go to the library and stay until the wee hours of the morning. What you don't know at that moment is that you're going to be at the library all night, and even then you might not know everything you need to know. Regardless, you sit yourself down and convince yourself you can do it. You are going to learn everything, even if it takes all night. You are determined.
Mental Breakdown
This stage usually starts after you get your mind straight and create a list of tasks that need to be completed throughout the night. I always do this first, and it usually causes way more stress than necessary. Once you realize that you have an insane number of things to do, your head kind of starts to feeling like its going to explode, and the room starts to spin. Your palms kind of start to get clammy as you envision your future night in the library.
Acceptance
Of course, as in any set of stages, acceptance is one. You have to accept the fact that you will be sitting down, attempting to learn material all night. To me, this is the hardest step. I always try and keep a positive mindset when studying. Something similar to, "Don't you worry! You'll be out of here by midnight. You'll get a good night's sleep, and you'll have all of it down!" Unfortunately, nine times out of 10, it's the complete opposite.
Confusion
This is the stage where you look up at the white board with problems on it, and it looks like it's written in a different language. While I was studying for my first exam in structural kinesiology, I felt like I was learning words I had never heard before. Even with my previous year of taking anatomy classes, I still felt as if the names of the muscles and terminology was brand new information. This stage is usually where the panic sets in, and if not, it'll usually come right after in the exhaustion stage.
Exhaustion
The exhaustion stage usually occurs at around 2–3 a.m. Your studying has seemed to almost plateau, where you've gotten into a routine. Whatever study techniques you're using, whether its color-coding or flashcards, have become repetitive. Once the repetition starts, you start to become a "zombie" of some sort. The bags start to show up under your eyes, your appearance becomes disheveled, and you have lost your once-eager outlook on the night ahead of you.
Fueling
Of course following exhaustion is always some type of fueling. I prefer anything with extreme amounts of sugar and caffeine. Heavy fast foods usually put me right to sleep, as does anything that fills my stomach. I usually bring some sort of soda or coffee with me to the library as is, on any given night. During this stage, you usually venture off to whatever vending machine you can find and pray to the Gods that it takes your crumpled up $1 bill.
Epiphany
I call the final stage the "epiphany" stage. This stage usually occurs either in the morning or just a few hours before the test. The hellacious amount of information that you have been trying to study finally comes to fruition and makes sense! Woohoo! You start to feel accomplished and somewhat prepared for the exam. Regardless of how much sleep you haven't gotten, you can say you have learned and understood the material, and let's be honest, that is the best feeling.
