Late Nighter's.

[Folwren]

Wait till I'm in college, huh? Well...one would think that is when I'd find out, but I am set and determined to get eight hours of sleep as often as possible during my college days. That means, getting my homework done during the day and if I don't have it done by night, not having any computer time. I don't know if my ideas will work, but I tell you - I've talked to too many friends this semester who are hardly having any time for meals or sleeping and I am convinced that sixteen hours of wakefulness is enough time to complete classes, homework, and necessary meals to stay healthy. And that will also provide eight hours of sleeping time. Whether it gives time for being socailable or visiting you chaps here on the Downs and e-mail friends....well...when I'm paying hundreds of dollars for college, college will come first. Sorry.

I've given this a lot of thought. Sorry to have given you a lecture...

-- Foley

[Farael]

**Disclaimer: This rant is by no-means an answer to Folwren but rather, a rant on why life is so hard on us University/College students. She has the right of doing things whichever way she wants, and of course, once she gets to University she might have a different experience than mine. This rant is just 'cos I like ranting**


Let me give you a quick run-through of the life of a University science student.
Let's assume for a moment that I am taking 5 courses. Not only that, but 5 third/fourth year science courses, which means that they all have a lab.

Now, The lecture portion for each course is about three hours a week, times five, 15 hours a week. Then we have a three hour lab for each course, times five another fifteen hours.

Here's where the fun begins.

Before each lab you need at the very least, to read up on what you are doing and sort of figure out all the procedures, if you don't know them, read them up. That is if you are lucky. If you are not, you also need to write a pre-lab exercise. A pre-lab exercise may take more than two hours and a half, reading up on the lab may take a bit more than an hour... let's make an average and call it two hours per lab. Times five, ten more hours.

Having fun yet? because after each lab you need to write some sort of report... a formal lab report may take more than ten hours of work (MUCH more if they want a detailed one) but that's only once a term (usually)... let's make it an average of three hours to make all calculations and the short write-up for a report that's not the formal. That's another fifteen hours.

Let's sum it all up 'till now. 15 hours of lecture, 15 hours of labs, 10 hours of pre-lab, 15 hours of reports.... 55 hours and counting.

Yes, that alone is more than a full-time job. But there's more!

At university they recommend that you study three hours for every hour of lecture. Now, I think that's a bit too much, but all in all it usually winds up to two hours per hour of lecture. Not all at the same time, some weeks I need to read more for one class, some weeks more for another, but that's about an average... and it adds up another thirty hours.

That's 85 hours a week of schoolwork. Divide it by seven and you get about 12 hours a day.

I suppose that, as Folwren hinted, if you are willing to leave 4 hours to "live" (including eating and traveling to and from your classes) that's about ok.. but let's face it, IT'S UNIVERSITY! (College for you Americans). Parties, Friends, Socials, Events, Sports.... Barrow Downs... No matter how hard you try to avoid it, sooner or later you will show up at a party, or go watch your school's team, or just hang out 'till late with your friends.

And I mean, what's an hour of sleep, if you can spend it with your buddies relaxing?

A friend of mine who is in Engineering (a rather hard career if you ask me, if they take a bit MORE than a full course-load every year it takes about three years to graduate, if they take the minimum they must to stay in the faculty it takes eight years) said very wisely: "These can be the worst three years of your life or the craziest eight. You need to find the point that will be the best for you."

Moral of the story?
a) DO NOT be a science student... even though Arts students have big papers to write... trust me, labs are twice as much pain, and the formal reports are not any shorter.
a2) If you are a science student, don't take a full course load after first or second year!!!
b) Whatever branch of studies you choose, try to enjoy it as much as possible! There's more to University/College than books and grades... find out a nice balance of fun and hard work and your experience will be quite enjoyable.

Did I find that balance? Not yet... but I'm working on that

[Durelin]

College next year for me, too. And late nights for me...too. Likely spent writing posts instead of doing work. (And I'm not touching the science. Yay odd-ball-don't-even-exist-at-most-universities/colleges and likely-going-to-be-lazy Classics majors!)

In other words: if you think my RP characters have problems now, then you should just wait till next fall...

Farael - Your schedule is a lot like some of my friends'...I'll be remembering you guys when I start complaining about my schedule next year!

[Celuien]

My worst college semester was as follows:

Physics (3 hour weekly lab, 2 hours of recitation, 3 hours of lecture)
Organic chemistry (3 hour lab, 3 hours of lecture)
Cell biology (3 hour lab, 3 hours of lecture)
Genetics (3 hour lab, 3 hours of lecture)
Biostatistics (3 hours of lecture)

Each of those lab courses had, as Farael said, prelab work for the procedures and lab reports (usually about 5 pages and then with pretty tables and figures to do as well). I was just a little overloaded.

I'm occasionally here at about 2 AM, mostly when I'm assigned to work odd hours. The 4 pm to midnight shift is irritating.

[Folwren]

Very well put, Farael. I can see the difficulty in juggling 85 hours of school work a day. But that's not the work load that my friends have been trying to handle. I talk to people who have probably eight to ten hours of work to do a day, including classes, lectures, meetings, and homework. That's as much time as I spend at work. And they're having problems eating properly and sleeping enough and I can't figure out why. I don't plan on getting a degree in Science. If I get a degree in anything (I'm not even sure I'm going to college), it'll be in English or some sort of Business (I may become a secretary).

I think, for what I am going to be doing in college, I will be able to get my necessary sleep. I won't be visiting the Barrow Downs at 1:00 a.m. Whenever I stay up that late, I'm useless the day after. I'd schedule myself, and I'd hope to get some time here.

Of course, you just watch - I join college and I totally go against what I've been saying here. That would be poetic justice, wouldn't it? So far as I know, I really am intending to eat and sleep...but necessity may change ideas.

-- Folwren

P.S. Am I sounding like a snob? I don't mean to be. I'm actually venting a lot of frustration. Two friends have just recently cried on my shoulder (it's a saying) about how awful they've been taking care of themselves during the school year, how stressed out they are, how little sleep they've been getting, and on and on......I can't fathom it. But then, I'm not a college student.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Second hour after midnight is about to go here, so I just want to add to this company...
I don't feel up to writing something long now, but I want to add to these college talks. Shortly and briefly: it's good to enjoy it, nothing stressy, the world doesn't depend on it, even you don't depend on it, you can make all in no problem if you know where to seek help. Of course one has to be careful though, since the schedule can be nasty if you don't realize quickly where you are. You can miss the train pretty easily. But, if you enjoy the study, you possibly would also care for it up to the point that you attempt to catch up with the studying plan, if you get what I mean. But even if you enjoy it, even if you are running with the train, you'll eventually find out (and that's right in any case as far as I know - if anyone has other experience, please let me know), if you have courses 16 hours or 4 hours per day, you'll realize that in the end it's the same, even if you had no courses at the time, you'll find that you are busy anyway.
See, I'm not much of a night owl, and I returned home at about 17:45 today, which is nice time (I have also a job for 10 hours a week, which means generally 2 hours per day, as an assistant in elementary school on the "step-by-step" educational project, if you heard about it). The last 6 hours I have spent with preparing for tomorrow, and, uh, a little bit looking here and there on the Downs You know, uh, just to get my mind off things But as you see, generally I manage to finish by midnight. I'm waking up at 6:30 tomorrow.
Okay, this was neither short nor brief.
Blaah blah blah.
Good night all.

[Valesse]

I used to only be able to really check the barrowdowns around 1 AM during this past semester... Needless to say thats not a popular time for downers, so the barrow got a rather lonely feel to it.

Lately it's just been me banging my head against my desk with that wonderful RPG of Glirdan. I love it, but it makes me feel so impatient!

There was one time when Valier and I were the only ones online and we were both on our game "Which Downer Am I"-wise. Partly because that was the only active thread at the time and we were both bored stupid. I still wish I could have seen some of those expressions of other players waking up to discover that.