In high school, my day would start at around 6 a.m. and end around 9 p.m. For most of the year, I would be at school 45 minutes early for mock trial practice. I would then have a full day of classes which would be followed by a shift at the restaurant I worked at. I would usually make it home by 8:30 p.m. where I would get some homework done and then doomscroll and crash for the day.
Rinse and repeat this for 180 days for a couple of years, and that was high school. Jump forward to now, and my days are vastly different. The earliest class I have starts at 9 a.m. which means my day usually starts at 8 a.m. After my first class, there is a break that’s about two hours long depending on the day.
Most of the week, I only have two classes per day (perks of a major switch I guess). Afterwards, I will either have some sort of club meeting or I will study for one of my classes in the library. Then comes dinner from UCC, some doomscrolling, and bed. That’s it.
So why on God’s green earth am I so tired all the time now?!?
There’s no argument about it, I am doing less per day than I was doing a year ago. Most of the time I spend in class per day is three and a half hours. Compare that to my senior year of high school, where I would have five hours of classes followed by three hours of work. I was always busy last year, and now I find myself going on random walks through Hoboken because I can’t find anything to do. Again, this begs the question, why am I so exhausted now?
I am going to attribute my exhaustion to a lack of solid routine. Despite doing so much every day in high school, most days were very similar in that I would wake up at the same time and go to bed at the same time. Now, when I wake up is determined by if my first class is at 9 a.m. or 10 a.m., and when I go to bed is determined by how much work I end up doing that night.
Along with the sleep schedule, how I spend my free time is also different. In past years, my free periods would be short and scattered around my day. A free 45 minutes in the morning followed by three classes, lunch, three more classes and another free 45 minutes at the end of the day. Now, I’ll have a single class followed by two hours of nothing. Previously, I would be focused and engaged for 5 hours straight. Now, I’ll be focused for an hour and then have to figure out how to become focused again in two hours for my next class.
These long breaks make every day feel longer. Now, I know this will change as I go through school here as every semester my schedule changes and gets more intensive but for now, somehow doing less is costing me more.
Now obviously waking up exhausted every single morning is not ideal. It has gotten to a point where I have started to try and do more in the day to create a more solid routine. I’ve set consistent alarms regardless of class start time. I’ve joined more orgs for the sole purpose of being busier. College is an experience like no other and you learn so much about yourself. I just never thought I would need to do more in order to feel less exhausted. Strange.
