All week college kids have been given and overloaded with about 15 weeks of future work to do. Getting back to school lives, jobs, and extracurriculars would make anyone want to bury their head in the ground and not come out until it's the weekend. As I sit here thinking of what to write my article on this week, the only thing that comes to mind is all the crap (pardon my "French") that I have to do. This first week back at school after a month off has brought all kind of emotions to my mind, and I think it might explode. With this article, I think I've narrowed down all of the emotions college kids feel coming back to school after break. These are the five emotions college kids experience the first week of school after break.
1. Joy
Of course, we're going to be happy and feel joyful! Some of us are feeling joyful because we're finally out of our crazy and strict parents' house again and back to our dorms or apartments where we can eat, sleep, and do what we want, when we want. But a lot of us feel joy because we get to see our friends from school again. Going a whole month without seeing someone you see and talk to every day just plain stinks. In a college community, it's completely built around friendships, there's no moms or dads, it's just people you chose to build your life around. And, when we don't see these special people for a while, we're overwhelmed with joy when we can finally go catch dinner with them at the dining hall we so fondly disgust.
2. Anxious
Going classes back-to-back-to-back and sometimes even back again really gets us feeling some high-quality anxiety. The first week is syllabus week, where boring professors moan on about the butt-ton of homework we are "required" to do and how they created this ridiculously hard final that nobody is going to pass that's worth 30% of your final grade. Processing this for just one class pains me, but three others in one day? No thanks. Professors should start handing out tissues with their syllabi because I know I'm going to need one.
3. Excitement
No matter how much we complain about school, deep down we are excited to be back. More importantly, we are excited to have the past semester behind us and a free start in front of us. Having the chance for a fresh start is exciting to anyone, especially when it's an academic fresh start. We come into the semester with new classes and new professors where we can set the pace for ourselves and start out on the right foot.
4. Stress
As a freshman, I'm still stressing this week because of finding my classes without looking like an idiot, and well frankly, getting the hang of "how to college." We stress about how early we should get to class and how long does it take to walk there from my dorm. Stress comes over us when we look at all the work we have to do this semester and how we have no time on certain days to even do homework or take a minute to breathe (or for me, it's my nap).
5. Exhaustion
A big emotion felt is exhaustion, mentally and physically. We are tired from traveling over the holidays and packing up all our things again for the second time in a month to head back to campus. We are exhausted of the same class all week and exhausted from the constant stress. New sleep schedules and the extreme output of energy get to us by Wednesday.
The beginning of the semester is hard, especially after the holidays. From spending the whole month trying to get used to another schedule to then being thrown into another one, that is frankly more important and stressful in ways. But somehow we overcome it and still have enough energy to go out for the weekend. College rocks.
