Picture this: You're young and naive and at your college orientation. You sit down to make your first college schedule. So much freedom, right? Wrong. You have to make sure you schedule in all those mandatory classes your school makes you take, and as you're scheduling, classes begin to fill up. All of a sudden you have a dilemma. That course that you really need to take only has a few options left, and they're all at 8 in the morning. No biggie though, right? You just wrapped up high school where you were already in class by 7:40 in the morning. So you do it — you sign up for the 8 a.m. class.

The first week flies by. You're up and dressed with time to spare, and you were even awake and attentive during class. This class will be a breeze. The excitement of the first week of class can really do that to you. But as the weeks go on, and you get deeper into the semester, you begin to put less effort into your appearance and into waking up in the morning. It starts to get colder and the days start to grow shorter. Getting out the door just becomes a task.

You start staying up later at night to get all your work done (or because you're goofing around with your roommates) and begin waking up later in the morning. You set your alarm so you have just enough time to roll out of bed, brush your teeth and get to class on time.

The class isn't even that bad (OK, maybe it is). But it wouldn't be so bad if you could actually keep your eyes open. The professor really struggles to get class participation, so he just lectures, which put you to sleep even faster. Out of nowhere, you have a really good point you want to make, but you can't find enough energy to even raise your hand. When you finally get to walk out of the class, you wonder if you even retained anything the professor said. You didn't.

Hopefully you have a roommate or a friend that endures this pain with you. You walk quietly to class with his or her, not speaking because it's just too early, and you're just too tired. You both vow to never schedule another 8 a.m. class for the rest of your academic career. Thankfully, the next semester you're blessed by the scheduling gods, and you don't start your day until 9 a.m. But let me tell you, that's no better.