There’s a joke around Wellesley that once Midterms season starts, it never ends. So far, from what I could see, that trend has held true. A friend of mine had four papers due in the same two days before Thanksgiving; another had a neuroscience and a biology exam in quick succession; at the beginning of French class for around two weeks, nearly everyone in the class reported that they were studying for 1-3 exams. For me, I had a philosophy paper and political science paper due yesterday along with a neuroscience exam on Monday and an economics exam last Friday. In my planner I use a red pen for important assignments – watching my week fill up with red reminders was a bit scary, though the fault is mine for using red in the first place. Maybe using green would’ve been better.
Nearly every post I’ve written so far has been trying to catalogue a sweet memory from every week. But this week, nothing stood out to me more than how exhausted I was – this was probably the case for many Wellesley students too, given the volume of sighing there was in the library and the sheer amount of panda eye-bags you would see in class.
For me, I’d spent far too many hours thinking about how to rewrite my philosophy paper on Descartes, and I didn’t do enough practice problems for my economics exam, but maybe that wouldn’t even have made a difference. Our economics professor extended the exam’s end time from 3:25 PM to 4:00 PM – an extra 45 minutes! At first we were grateful for the time, but we were suspicious about why he was being so gracious. Turns out, the exam was awfully difficult. Nearly everyone stayed right up until 4:00 PM. There were a few tired chuckles as people spilled out of the room in despair. Even after I’d figured that philosophy paper out and finished my economics exam I couldn’t relax because our neuroscience practicum exam – which had a reputation for being tough – was in three days and I had a paper on Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms to write.
Sometimes it feels like there aren’t enough hours in the day. I look at students who are juggling three jobs, two internships, music lessons, a research project, a thesis, and five or six classes all at once and just wonder, how do they do it all at once? The Wellesley Mock Trial team went to Albany, New York over the weekend and did incredibly well – they won second place! Shakes – the Shakespeare society on campus – performed Hamlet five times from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon. Just think about all the rehearsals, tireless afternoons, practice sessions, memorization, and work that goes into these clubs behind the scenes. I was in Mock Trial last year, and even without being in person or having to travel for competitions, it felt like another class. Shakes seems to be an entire theatre association by themselves – they’ve got it all down from set changes to lighting control, from gorgeous costumes and makeup to incredibly talented acting. It’s humbling to see what people are capable of creating, but then I look inwards and wonder what could I do? I’m not even doing half the work they are doing but I’m so tired, I just want to take a nap.
I feel like dwelling too much on being stressed will just stress me out even more. I know there are resources out there to help me, but now, most of this stuff I just want to figure out for myself. With academic stress, I need to remind myself to prioritize efficiently. My professor won’t ask me to regurgitate every footnote in the 100+ pages of readings he assigns for every class, so I just need to retain enough information to write a Sakai post and participate in class. I should consciously try to create a day-to-day work-life balance instead of trying to make Saturdays my “fun days” and give myself no breaks throughout the rest of the week. Getting burnt out at the end of every week might not be optimal in the long run.
A professor gave a little piece of advice to my friend once. Workaholism seems to be the norm at Wellesley, so maybe this will give you some solace too. The work – readings, papers, exams – will get done. You always get it done and you will get it done. But when you look back on college, you won’t remember every exam or paper you wrote. Instead, you’ll remember the goofy evening chats and late nights spent wandering around the city with your friends. You’ll look back and want to relive the precious hours you spent with people you hold dear.
Spicy ramen post-neuroscience exam with Amy Xuan ‘24
Though maybe I won’t remember the 50-something structures of sheep brain anatomy for my neuroscience practicum exam last Monday, I will definitely remember that Monday evening when my roommate Amy and I made spicy ramen. I’ll remember how smelling the spice made me wince and how my grimace made her laugh; I’ll remember the prompt cards we drew from Dan and Phil’s board game Truth Bombs and the curious conversations we had; I’ll remember her running to get her lactaid after we started eating ice cream.
I hope we can make time in our busy schedules to make these memories so, in time, we can look back on these four short years of college with as little regret as possible.