I am a college student who also has two younger siblings in high school - a junior and a freshman, respectively - and my own years of high school are not long past. What I remember from high school is a far cry from what I see in TV shows and movies. I remember falling asleep while trying to do chemistry homework long after midnight, trudging my way through 11 AP classes until I was more a test-taking robot than a teenager. I am guilty of many of the habits I find fault with now, but this is part of life: learning, growing and accepting the past personas as stepping stones.

My friends and I would trade stories of how little sleep we had the night before like showing off battle scars. Four hours - didn't start that English paper until last night. Three hours - the chemistry review packet was longer than expected. Two hours - an entire government project. No sleep at all - everything adds up and sleep is the deficit. We made up for this by drinking insane amounts of coffee while our moms protested.

We had pretty common attitudes for my high school, a competitive student body of 2,000. Our teachers and guidance counselors pushed AP classes like they were a religion, delivering us from public high school and to the glory of top-tier state schools. I took 11 AP classes during my time in high school, which was by no means unusual. Other friends graduated with 15 or compensated by taking the AP science classes that necessitated two class blocks.

Our classes, our teachers, our school and pretty much everyone we knew told us that this was how to be successful in a new world. We learned how to work hard, for sure, but we didn't learn how to play hard in order to offset the stress. Even our sports and other after-school activities were underlined in screaming red ink, telling us that if we weren't the best, we weren't good enough.

I didn't realize how unhealthy and how all-consuming these attitudes were until I graduated high school and came to college, where I took classes I enjoyed and managed not to kill myself in the process. My younger two siblings are still in the noxious environment of high school, and I see the effect secondhand now - many nights spent doing meaningless Earth science homework.

We can establish that this is a problem but the biggest issue is that these attitudes are so pervasive. Our school system is focused on competition to a level that there is no cooperation, no teamwork, only bitterness and sleeplessness. Nothing to foster a teenager's development.

There are ways to approach being successful in school without giving in to this destructive and impossible-to-sustain attitude. We can do this as students, but also as parents, siblings, friends and peers. We can realize how we approach problems as well as guide our friends and kids to do the same, giving them the ability to analyze what they're doing.

A big question I ask myself now is: will this matter in 10 years?

My chemistry homework for April 3? Probably not. My overall grade in English 10? Not as important as I made it out to be. Doing my final project? Definitely important. Learning to prioritize is important, but so is learning to let go. Some nights, we will have to decide between eking out 20 more Latin translations or going to sleep. Some nights, sure, it's important to finish Latin. But, good Lord, you need to sleep, too.

You may be a student first, but even more important you are human being. That has to take top priority.