Well folks, the semester
is drawing to an end. That means it’s time for dreams of barbeques and swimming
pools, but before that, we have to make it through endless papers, tests,
presentations, and all the other fun that school gives us right before the semester
ends. I can’t help but notice that students are already becoming a bit frayed
around the edges, myself included. Every end of the semester, the stress starts
to get to people, piling up and up until you’re just about to explode into a
cloud of Wikipedia and Red Bull. But, as a soon-to-be graduating senior, I have
to reflect on all this. How does this keep happening? Why do we keep putting
up with this craziness? I decided to look at
some books ABOUT college life, and how all this stress keeps happening. After checking these titles out for good info, I got some ideas on ways to
finally defeat that end of the semester panic.
There are many books out
there for students just getting started, or for those who are having a rough
patch in college later on. Newport's book is easy to read, and has a wide variety of
topics. Granted, the book came out in 2005, so it is a little bit dated (not
one Instagram reference? For shame!), but the advice itself is still perfectly good. Each chapter focuses on a different college strategy, focusing on
both big tips, like being willing to drop bad classes, and making safe
decisions involving alcohol, to small day to day tips, like making your bed to
feel more organized, and learning a new joke every day to keep your spirits up.
There are 75 tips in this series, all taken from graduating students, and
almost all of them are ones I can very much recommend. The very last tip is to
have no regrets, and I feel like if you can make it through college with no (or
at least few) regrets, you have done pretty darn well.
If you’re interested in
more about how college works, and why we have so much stress, check out this
online book that can give you up to date information about life in
college! OK, you’re already in college, but still! The thing about undergraduate life that
seems to really stress people out is how everything seems to pile up near
the end. All the homework due, all the tests happening, every extracurricular
is wrapping up this year’s work and planning for next year, trying to get
summer plans situated(or in my case, graduation plans)-- it can all be
so overwhelming. To combat this, this book strongly suggests spreading deadlines out as
much as possible, not allowing everything to happen at once. I like that
particular advice, and a lot of the other things about this book. Published in 2010, it's more up to date, and its style is
easy to read while still sounding intelligent. If you want more information about
college life, and ways to plan for next year, give this book a read!
Millennials, for the
record, are our older siblings and us. The generation that was born beginning around 1982 and where that ends
sort of shifts around, but it probably ends around….the mid-to-late 90s? I don’t know,
no one seems to be able to tell for sure. But it covers most traditional students
in college right now, and from what I read, the millennials are presenting something
of a challenge. For one thing, we are crazy overworked. This generation of teens
and 20- somethings are very work driven, constantly trying to get the
edge, and be “the best”. That pressure can make the already stressful world of
college into even more of a mine field of late nights and eye twitching. This
book discusses the traits of many Millennials, and how they learn and function.
I like this book, and I do think it is more fiar to this generation than a lot of
other writers seem to be. It discusses the two things common to complaints about our generation
(entitled, obsessed with tech) and the good things (more tolerant, hardworking),
and how they affect our time in college. Published in 2007, this book is a little dated (apparently
Facebook was a hot new thing when this book came out), but its points are
legit. It can give more answers as to why we are just so dang stressed.
Having fun ripping your
hair out and banging your head against the wall? Well, don’t worry, you are not
alone! Stress this time of the year is perfectly normal, and at least it means
you care enough to get stressed. Look at these books, and see how many students
are going through the same thing you are! And it's not new to this generation- imagine your mom typing her 20-page poli sci paper on a typewriter, no delete key, no insert key, no automatic header function......This is my final end of semester here
at USI, so I know what I am talking about when I say that it’s really not so
bad to be stressed. It's normal, and
while it's inevitable, you can try to control it because school is important and all that and it’s worth it in the end. Want to know ways to
beat the stress? Tune in next time to find out!
CP
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