Please immediately consider this a rant. A rant that, I believe, we have all had at some point. I’m sure we’ve all called a relative, a friend, or a significant other and poured our troubles onto their laps. One such trouble that we have all released onto our unsuspecting victims is stress. Namely, stress over school.

Midterms are here and for those of us in online courses, it is also Finals week. I’m taking an online course and I know several other students who are doing the same.

I’ve seen it in each of their expressions, the absolute desperate need for sleep.

I need sleep. I’m running on four hours of sleep a night for the past week. I, like the rest of you, have papers due, projects to turn in and present and exams. Oh, so many exams that I can barely see straight. I wish that I still drank caffeine. That would make life much easier if I could turn on a coffee pot, fill my cup to the brim with that beautiful, heart-racing chemical and enjoy it as it works to spark energy in my brain.

But, no, all I am doing is scraping along, looking forward to the moment I can sit down without responsibilities and nap.

If you are in college, you know it is crazy stressful around this time.

So, I wanted to put out a notion that midterms are far too crazy. Cramming us with work does not show our progress. In fact, reading progress, from stressed, over-worked students, is pointless. If you are stressed, you are not performing at your highest level.

I think that schools, in general, need to lessen the homework load and focus wholly on the aspect of learning. I don’t know about you but, I believe that learning does not happen when you are writing three papers, all due at the same time.

Well, you do learn one thing. You learn how to prioritize your time and which day you can skip sleep. The paper is an obstacle and no longer a tool.

My simple request is to lessen our load. We want to learn – we don’t want to harm ourselves for a letter grade.