As I begin my second semester of university, I am reminded of the feelings I had first semester. The feelings of social anxiety, uncertainty and, above all, the general "deer in the headlights" existence are gone. But this article is not concerned with that which does not prevail past the "first semester experience." No, I am much more interested in what has prevailed, for what lives on semester to semester has much greater effect on my future than feelings of the past that have since faded away. Hence, I find myself struck by the continuing phenomena that is the crippling syllabi stress.

Perhaps there is some cutesy phrase that one could use to better communicate the idea of syllabi stress, but I'll leave that to someone far more clever than myself. For now, syllabi stress will do.

So, now that that's out of the way, what exactly am I referring to? I refer to the moment a university student lines up the syllabi of all his/her classes and discovers that indeed life is impossible, and there is no hope for the future. This discovery is followed by indignation; this newfound fact of life simply cannot be true. There must be something to all the hopeful stories these students were fed their entire lives, and so the student begins phase one of syllabi stress.

Phase one,

The student incessantly and futilely plans when certain things will get done. Indeed, even the least organized of students (or perhaps especially the least organized) will utilize some form of calendar and align due dates with weekends available to try to spread out work as efficiently as possible. This is all well and good, but it usually ends poorly, unless said student has an unusual propensity for planning. Phase one typically ends when the act of planning an entire semester results in an insurmountable number of variables, and so the student quits and naturally transitions into phase two.

Phase two

Is rather simple. Phase two is the phase of incapacitation. Many have been known to not remember phase two at all when they think back on it. This phenomena of loss of memory is colloquially referred to as "napping," though one might call it stress-induced sleep. Others eat, others watch Netflix and still others stare at some inanimate object (or stare at fully alive people, depending on the level of disassociation). Eventually, inactivity ends, and people transition to phase three.

Phase three

Takes many different forms. The spreadsheet lovers take on the task of planning once more and succeed to their great delight. The students who fumbled their way through high school to get to college accept that they are unprepared for what lies ahead and assume a "one day at a time" attitude. In fact, there are so many versions of phrase three that I cannot possibly describe them all. My favorite version of phase three is the acceptance of failure before attempt and the continuation of Netflix binging. While their actions are ultimately detrimental, Netflix bingers at least have a genuine reason to explain their inevitable failure, in comparison to those who actually apply effort to their lives and still, on occasion, fail.