College is genuinely a stressful time for everyone. Whether you're a freshman or a senior, you still stress out about every single homework or project and have about three or more mental breakdowns a semester. If you get involved with clubs and organizations on campus, that adds on to the stress. With all of this comes fun, but it also comes with responsibility. A lot of students, including myself, have to work themselves through college to pay for school itself and all of the extras that come with it. Rent, club and organization dues, food, gas, just the various bills that come with being an adult. Some students are fortunate enough to have their parents pay for everything. There's nothing wrong with that, actually you're quite lucky if you don't have to stress about anything other than school work, but not all of us have that luxury.
There's something about making your own money that gives you a sense of empowerment, but because of this, you have to sacrifice events that you want nothing more than to be at with your friends. When you move out of your childhood home and go off to college, your answer to every "What are you doing?" or "Want to hang out?" related question always circles back to having to work. It adds an enormous amount of stress and anxiety on top of your already existing stress and anxiety because you barely have time to complete your school work because you have to work 1 or 2 jobs to make a living to even stay in school. School always comes before work, but there would be no school without work.
Between working and going to school, it barely leaves time for any type of social life. It's all about time management, but it's still hard to have to miss big events because you have to go to work or you have to get your homework done because you couldn't get it done before because you were at work. It's really a never-ending cycle, but it's a cycle you can barely change because you need to stay in school and keep a job. Most of the time, it's not terribly bad to still find time to go out with your friends or go to events for the organizations you belong to, it really is just about how you manage your time.
Keeping up with school, work, and the social element is tiring and hard work for anyone who has to juggle all three. It's not impossible to do, you just have to make sure you have enough time left for yourself to relax a little bit. If you overwork yourself, it'll just add on to all the problems that are already existing. If you're going through these same types of issues, keep pushing. You're strong and smart enough to do it all.
