Culture Story Draft
Albert Einstein once said that time is irrelevant. Now, over 75 years later, I am beginning to question his credentials. For Einstein could not have been a collegiate if he believed this to be true, or maybe it’s that German colleges are set up different than American colleges. Either way, for the 21stCentury college student, time is very relevant.
Our days are filled with class, work, and homework. Though, because we are not given a specific time for homework, it seems that the only time that I have to work on it, is when I’m busy. Does that make sense? It may not, but that is how college life seems to work itself out. In this grand expanse of time, we schedule each portion of the day. However, the tasks become so close that eventually all 24 hours of the day are taken up. The only time we have to work on some assignments is while we’re waiting for other tasks to near their completion.
Laundry is the easiest of the time consuming tasks. Put clothes in. Add soap. Wait one hour, and repeat. This is one task that allows us time to complete others that would otherwise mess up our perfectly laid schedules. But laundry is only once a week at best. You can’t read and vacuum, nor can you commute and write a paper, and hopefully none have tried. To sum up, the college student is not only forced to deal with college issues, but the time consumed in menial, everyday tasks. The college life is simply time consuming.
Now, one generally wakes up between an hour or a half hour before class. If the latter is true, the average student does not allow themselves time to eat, which is most often the case. In the professional or “adult” world, people give themselves three times a day to eat. College students eat whatever they can in the time that their schedule has allowed.
The average class is one hour long, however, half the time, they can go up to 90 minutes. This is generally followed by another class ten minutes later. The student has the ability to pick and choose their classes as they wish, but the necessity for some classes is unavoidable, and the ability to make the college change the scheduled class time is nothing but a mere wish that only Freshman still have.
Before you know it it’s noon, you just haven’t noticed because you’ve slept half the morning away, whether you’re in class or not. Now you may eat. But it can’t be that simple. Can it? In fact, it’s not. Clubs and organizations use this time to meet. If God is on your side, you have time to run to the cafeteria and grab food to go. In there you will most likely see the College President laughing the lunch hour away. What right does he have to be so relaxed? At least he tries to be one of us. But if he isn’t losing half his meal while trying to shove the rest in his mouth before darting off to the next activity, can he ever truly be one of us?
In my case, I have a radio show that takes up the one o’clock hour. I then must drive home and change before going to work at four. When I am done at eight, I must find time to eat. I’m lucky if the average day “ends” before 9:00 P.M. And even after it “ends” I still need to do homework. That’s two classes a day, both of which seem to think that theirs is the only class I must be taking, so I must have time to read twenty-five pages, and write a three-page essay (Three pages… yea, right!).
Following all this, I need to go to bed to be sharp for the next morning. But one must decompress before going to bed, otherwise they will toss and turn for hours on end. If this is not you, however, please know that you are hated.
I consider myself to be the “average” college student. But some of you may be thinking that I am blowing this out of proportion. You are wrong. I imagine the average college student has even more to deal with. Sometimes I feel like I am the only person at Morningside College that does not have a double major or a minor. I have a emphasis and a cluster, that should be enough for you people! But I digress.
Many other students are double majored, or do have minors. This runs the possibility of having five, or God forbid, six, classes in a semester. There is also a high amount of students that are involved in sports. Sporting events and practices then take up two to four hours of the students’ day.
Now, the grand majority students are in clubs. This includes athletes, the simpletons like me, with only a single major, and the vast amount of students with double majors and minors. Even these people find time to be in two or three different campus organizations. Some of these people, myself included, are even the leaders of groups. We are now forced to work our schedules around that of the rest of the people in the group. This is truly getting exhausting at this point.
Finally, there is the weekend. But, wait… there’s more. Saturday is one of two days where the average college student has no classes to attend. However, this is the day of the weekend that the largest number of businesses are open. So, the chances are high that you will work this day away because you need to pay the college to all your time.
Saturday night is the night to make things happen. You can’t do homework now, not when you are at the only time in this God forsaken week that you don’t have to wake up before the sun. I’m not suggesting party, though they could be fun, but one must do something out of the everyday world to keep their sanity. So, Saturday is usually spent in front of a TV.
Finally, it is Sunday. This day is spent on homework, unless of course you have light classes or did your homework on Saturday night (Please note that you too, are hated). And so the day drifts by, under the stress of homework, or more likely, the anxiety of procrastination. Then, on Sunday night, you finally see your bed. Let all the stress drift away for eight more hours. First of course there is the terrible realization that you have no social life because of the time sucking vortex that is the college life. Then there is the overwhelming fear about what lies ahead.
Then there is calm. You realize that you do have friends and a social life, they are just as exhausted as you. So, you can all be exhausted together. And of course there is the realization that this time consuming monstrosity will lead you to an, overall, happy and successful life. Then you begin to embrace the week to come, for it will be like the week that passed, which you finished with flying colors.With the fear disappearing, you surrender to the sweet release of sleep.
But before you finally nod off, you go over what tomorrow will be, and what you should wear to combat the ever-changing Iowa weather. And you open your eyes in the realization that you need to do laundry. Fuck.