By Dana Jennings, Opinion Editor
When the halls reopened and the merry had made their merry way back from wherever they came from, it is a good time to reflect on the concluded hell of a semester that everyone has had and look forward to the bliss that is this term. Whether this semester is your last or only your second, it is within your power to make it Eden or Hades
If anyone took the time to calculate all of the conversations on campus during finals last semester, 97.4 percent would have been either about doing a research paper/project or lamenting and ruing (which are complicated words for whining and crying) the anticipated work that the person was procrastinating (we all know this word all too well) from doing. Another 2.5 percent of the conversations would have been about either sports or the newest hot TV show. The remaining 0.1 percent would be the two conversations I heard the other day about whether it is proper etiquette to put down a drink before or after something idiotic is attempted; in one of the conversations it was specifically trying to trim a hedge with a push lawnmower. By the way, don’t do that.
The point of my hypothetical and satirical (those are complicated words for a guesstimation “because I have no idea about the true numbers” and, I hope, funnily mocking) survey is to give some perspective into the stress that every student here at Saint Leo University and every other higher education institution runs into at the end of every semester. It is called higher education for a reason, and not the reason that gives students the 3A.M. munchies. If a semester were “easy,” the students wouldn’t learn to think critically and push themselves beyond their comfort zones.
That being said, students routinely refer to terms as “Hell” and professors as “Lucifer” or “Satan.” This is merely an exaggeration. Looking back, my best professors were the hardest and demanded the best from me, never accepting second-rate work. When I graduate I will be learned (which is an egotistical way of saying I can sip wine and eat cheese and crackers with other learned people and we can discuss important things). What it truly means, is that I will have built lasting relationships with intelligent and hard-working people who I can collaborate and network with to try to change the world in my “humble” fashion (by taking it over and changing the laws to reflect common sense, such as requiring all electronics companies to use the same power plug to all of their devices like cell phones and computers, or face Chinese water torture).
This spring term will be stressful, just as this last term was and the term before that and so on. Don’t fret though, good Saint Leo patron, for even with stress, you can find a way to happiness. The path to happiness is through perception and preparation.
Firstly, students need to recognize, as I have shown, that the stress will come, and the agony associated with it will be severe. Once you know that, and can see that in 5, 10, or 68 years from now you will look back on this time and smile, envisioning the youth, innocence, and true learning you received here.
Secondly (professors will love me for this), nothing can get you through this semester better and with less stress than to prepare yourself both mentally and academically for it. Saint Leo University offered approximately one month of time between the last day of finals and the first day of spring classes. Students can (and did) misuse this time to slack off, sleep in, and most deliberately do absolutely nothing. Or if you don’t like the feeling of impending doom hanging over you like a cloud of angry malevolence (that means the “Oh dang” feeling you had during finals as seemingly all of your projects were due tomorrow or the next day), you can get ahead during the slow time of early semester and start on projects, reading, research, and papers (I know, you hate me. It’s ok).
Enjoy the semester, as I hope you have enjoyed this fun editorial (that’s newspaper talk for “Please don’t send us hate mail because this is only this journalist’s opinion”). If you did slack off over the break and don’t do anything about it soon, don’t be surprised if in April you have high blood pressure from stress and projects that all come upon you at once.
