The first day of school is very stressful; you worry about making an impression, making your mark on your unassigned assigned seat, and making it through the whole class period when your professor decides to go straight from the Syllabus to Chapter 1. Midterms are also very stressful; you did the thing you swore you wouldn't do this year--you wait until 3 days before to even start thinking about your exams. Oh and teachers do this adorable thing where they assign 12 papers that are all due during midterm week. It's fine... And of course, finals week speaks for itself. It's midterms times two (because usually that sh*t is cumulative), and on top of academic pressure, you have to worry about packing up your dorm or apartment, fitting everything you own into your decade old four-door, and finding a job for the summer. IT'S FINE... But there's a period of our semester that often gets overlooked, that somehow manages to sneak under the radar until BAM it hits us...you know what I'm talking about...the quarter semester crisis. And here is how it goes.
This is you, casually cruising through the first couple of weeks of school, minding your own business.
Someone comments that football season is coming up soon. You get excited to tailgate and party and wear your school's colors in the stands.
You see the leaves start to change, and Starbucks confirms your suspicion that summer is officially coming to an end.
You get comfortable with all your classes, maybe a little too comfortable, because by now you've skipped a class or two...
And then it happens. One of your friends sends you the dreaded text: "are you ready for the test tomorrow?"
Or maybe you open your email for the first time since syllabus week and see this subject line from a professor: "Tomorrow's Exam"
You dig out your crumpled up, coffee-stained, bottom-of-the-backpack dwelling syllabus packet. And your worst fear is confirmed...you have your first exam tomorrow.
Before you can start cramming, you start panicking, because you see another email from a different professor... reminding you to turn in your paper by midnight and to bring a scantron to YOUR EXAM TOMORROW.
You deny this is all happening. How can it be September 15th already? Where did the time go? We're still on chapter 1?! RIGHT?!
So suddenly, your peaceful, relaxing, free-time filled week has gone kaboom. It's gone. So are your 6-8 hours of planned sleep tonight. You cram and write until your fingers go numb, then you write some more and cram some more.
And then you try your best-ish to get everything turned in and completed.
In the end, you survive the week. Do you thrive? Questionable. But it doesn't matter because you did it: you survived the Quarter Semester Crisis.
