When you are in college, your schedule is packed constantly to the point that you are lucky if you even get the recommended 8 hours of sleep a couple days out of the week. You take a good amount of classes that keep your nose in the books at least a few hours a day, on a good day. Not to mention the saying, “for every credit hour taken, you are supposed to study 2 to 3 hours outside class.” Then, you have to think about how to fit in your 3 meals, since they are no longer dictated by your parents nor does school have a period set aside for a meal. Having this freedom allows you to eat whenever you want with whoever you want. With the remaining few hours of a typical college day you get to relax occasionally, hang out with your friends, and participate in clubs or sports.
Let’s just say, college days are long. So, throughout the semester you are running around having so much to do in so little time that as the end of the semester approaches, you get excited about the thought of relaxing all the time and actually getting at least eight hours of sleep. You start to think about all the things you want to do and all the things you will no longer have to, like homework. Than finals week comes and you are running around doing those last minute things, say goodbye to all your friends, pack up all your things, and get ready for summer you’ve been waiting for. Relieved that you will get to de-stress for a few months, you drive home and start your break right away.
A week or so into your vacation, you already begin to miss your friends and your usual activities at school. The shock of being busy all day to doing nothing all day hits you. You try to make up for the lack of human interaction and things to do by seeing your friends from high school every opportunity you get. As your friends start to find jobs or go on beach vacations with their families you start trying to find other things to do. Since you do not really have a lot of money to do anything, your options are limited to low budget, more like no budget, activities.
After about a month goes by, you start to miss those crazy days where you felt like you were doing five things at once and the late night fun with your college friends. By midsummer, you hit ‘rock bottom’ and actually start to miss classes and even the homework. Finally, you have a few weeks before you are going back to college, and you could not be happier that it is almost here. You think about how nice it will be to get back into the groove of having three classes, two meetings, studying and homework to do every day of the week. You start buying your textbooks online thinking about the upcoming semester. Finally, it is the day you move back to college, and you could not be more thrilled to get less sleep.
