Written by: Ruth Simonsen | Digital Media Manager

Do you ever feel like you barely have time to breathe during the week? Well, that’s likely because you don’t. As a college student — which, if you’re reading this, you probably are — you have little to no time to live a normal, functioning life. 

Now why is this, you ask? Let’s break it down. Assuming you are the average college student, you are probably taking around 16 credits this term, or roughly four classes. Each credit is supposed to fill approximately three hours of work per week, outside of the scheduled lecture period. If you’re taking four different four-credit classes, that totals out to 48 hours of work you are supposed to do in one week. 

This number is outrageous for a student, seeing as if it were a job, you’d be getting paid overtime for these hours. These ungodly hours are also not accounting for working part-time, or even full-time jobs just to help pay for a fraction of these classes. 

Let’s reassess. Classes take 48 hours of your week, and a part-time job on top of that would take at least 25 more hours. What about if you want to have a day off, specifically on the weekend? Well, you would have to find a way to cram all of your work, from both classes and your job, to make that adjustment. 

If you wanted to take Saturdays off, you would have to find a way to fit roughly 12 hours of work in each day, both paying jobs and college classes. We’re not done yet. 

So you want to get into grad school during all of this? Okay, let’s find you some internships and volunteer positions to help expand that application for you. 

You have time to make that work, right? Oh, you have a partner that you want to spend time with as well? And friends too? Well, let’s see. If you find a way to cram everything into only six days and use every single hour of those days without giving yourself time to eat, sleep or breathe, maybe you’ll have time to see your friends on Saturday. 

Oh shoot, all of your friends are working on Saturday. And your partner? They left you because you didn’t make enough time for them during the week. What are you left with? Nothing, besides your classes, your jobs, your internships, your volunteer hours and your sad excuse for a college student life. 

Don’t worry though, these are the best years of your life!

Contact the author at howldigitalmediamanager@mail.wou.edu