Last year, I was talking to a recent GDS graduate about junior year. While we shared our grievances about the year, she said, “There’s an expectation to feel stressed all of the time.” As I look back as a senior, I understand what she meant.
We admire excessive work. We justify our obsessive study habits with the good grades we score on assessments, but in practice, our habits do more harm than good.
Wherever I turned last year, I seemed to talk to someone who proudly declared that they stayed up all night to study for a test and relied on energy drinks to make it through the day. Why didn’t I study that much? So I began to devote even more time and energy to studying.
I felt my class’ collective stress intensify as my peers discussed college applications. Everyone seemed to be ten steps ahead, to be thinking about standardized testing and college essays far more than me. Again, I assumed that if I compared my practices to those of my peers, I would motivate myself to catch up. Why didn’t I start studying for the SAT earlier? Why hadn’t I scheduled college tours?
But I didn’t end up with higher grades and test scores, and I grew more frustrated. I realized that I heard about many people who overworked themselves, but I only heard about one or two who actually improved their grades after staying up all night.
As underclassmen, we heard that junior year was especially difficult and that we needed to be ready to work hard. So I realized my peers and I tried to prove to ourselves that we could overcome the challenge of junior year by working really hard, even if we worked too much and saw little in return.
So I stopped feeling guilty when I went to sleep early or spent time with friends instead of in the quiet side of the library. When I heard classmates talk about the time they spent studying for a test, I didn’t doubt my preparation.
On the nights before assessments, I chose to sleep for a couple more hours instead of studying. The extra hours of sleep gave me energy for assessments. And I realized that when I spent more time at social and extracurricular events, I relieved academic pressures.
Because I was no longer focusing solely on my grades, I got the most out of my classes. I felt energized for class discussions. I studied for the sake of learning and not for the sake of a grade. When my teachers handed back my tests, I glanced at the score and focused on my answers. When I got home, I reattempted the incorrect ones.
When I stayed on a consistent schedule and balanced my studies with my free time, I performed well and kept my stress levels down. I did not get through the second half of junior year with sleepless nights and monotonous days of work.