Oh, You Thought You Were a Good Student?

December 6, 2020

If you’ve ever attended college, you know how stressful finals week can be. And if you were in college any time during the year 2020 you know how stressful finals week is, on top of living with the stress of a global pandemic. Even if you haven’t been *personally* affected by the pandemic, it has added this strange vibe to majority of our normal endeavors. This whole semester for me has looked like me thinking about all the homework and work I have to do. Getting so OVERWHELMED by just thinking about all the work I have to do. Becoming tired from being overwhelmed. And then not doing any work because I am now too tired because my brain has exhausted herself. Then waking up the next day, ready to get to work because I know it has to get done, becoming overwhelmed again, trying not to cry, now rinse and repeat.

Somehow that is my new normal when I am what I like to call an exceptional student. Not to toot my own horn or anything but *toot toot* Let me brag on myself really quick. I turn in quality work even when it’s not what I consider my best work. I get A’s on almost everything I turn in, I go to professor’s office hours, I’ve maintained over a 3.0 during my whole college experience, I’ve done just about everything I needed to do in order to make sure that I got the MOST out of this expensive education I’m paying for. Now, I didn’t include all that good stuff about myself to make anyone feel bad because I know college is hard. Doing all of that work was hard to me, but having good grades is something I take pride in, school is something I’m good at. But how is it that this semester I had to withdraw from a course 2 weeks before the class was over? Why did I suddenly start to cry on Zoom in front of my professor about my final portfolio? Why have I asked nearly all of my professors for extensions on any assignment they have asked for? Is it just because of the pandemic or is it a bad case of senioritis? Or is it something else? What is going on?

This is what I’ve been asking myself since about October. “What is going on?” Would I be feeling this way if everything in the world was “normal?” Did the pandemic really take a toll on me? It can become dispiriting when everything that you’re used to suddenly isn’t what you’re experiencing. I enjoyed going to class, writing papers, schoolin’. Now I don’t. It bugs me that I can’t tell if it’s the unknown of what it’s like to not be a student because I have been a student majority of my life or if it’s the intensity of a pandemic. Or is it both? All I know for certain is that I was not prepared for any of this and it feels-for lack of better words- ghetto. Hopefully I have some resolved questions by May 9th. If not well that’s okay too.

Be blessed,

Alyssa