I think professors must get a kick out of throwing a ton of assignments at students at the same time. Why else would so many of our professors have major assignments due within two days of each other, if not for the pure enjoyment of watching their students run around like chickens with their heads cut off?

I’m not the only student to have noticed this phenomenon. Some speculate that certain professors get together and plan to make big assignments in their respective classes due on the same day. While this scenario isn’t exactly logical, it does make one stop and think. Maybe professors enjoy the thrill of watching their students cram at the last minute to keep up with their class work. Or perhaps they feel that because they had to suffer through this academic hazing when they were in college, then so should we. But haven’t we suffered enough? Most students aren’t just taking classes ? we also work. Trying to find a balance between carrying a full load of classes, working, being involved in extra-curricular activities and trying to maintain some semblance of a social life is not an easy task, especially when we are constantly being overloaded with class work.

The end result of this mad dash to keep up with school and life is a lack of sleep and poor eating habits, resulting in a campus full of sick students coughing and sneezing on one another. I’ve already begun to hear the sniffles in the backs of classrooms, and the occasional muffled cough as I walk through the halls. We’re only into the fourth week of school, and already the stress from so much class work is beginning to show. One professor urges his ill students to stay at home until they are well so they don’t infect the rest of the student population. While this is a nice sentiment, it’s not entirely realistic. The reason we become sick in the first place is from being bogged down by so much work. If we were to stay home from school for a day or two, we would have that much more work to make up once we were feeling better. This means students have to work to make up the work we missed while sick, as well as trying to stay on top of the work assigned once we are back; thereby, we are trapped in a vicious and seemingly endless cycle.

I realize professors are only trying to prepare us for the “real world,” but honestly, college is nothing like the real world. After graduating most of us will not go to work at a job where we are required to put in 60 or 70-hour weeks, like so many students do, and most employers allow sick days without penalty, while most professors knock points off your grade for every absence. Is this fair? Probably not, but it’s the life of a student and, for whatever reason, we keep coming back for more, year after year. Ultimately, life in college is a whirlwind of events, papers, exams, and endless reading, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Erin Kauffman is the latest addition to the opinion staff. She majors in government and women?s studies, and can be reached at [email protected].