As the year comes to an end, students are frantically trying to turn in assignments and missing work in order to enjoy their winter break with no worries.
However, some students have recently been feeling overwhelmed with the large workload and find it difficult to do anything other than schoolwork.
“School has been tough on me and all of my friends to say the least, senior Heather Garcia said.
“I work most of the week and when it is time for me to do my work, it takes up the rest of my time out of my day. I can’t do this and I can’t do that anymore, it is just school,” Garcia said.
With teachers assigning multiple assignments per class, it can sometimes get hectic for students to find time for everything.
Some students may have other commitments or responsibilities such as taking care of younger siblings, a job or sports/clubs they participate in.
It’s important to students to not get too stressed out and take some time out for themselves to relax and unwind, but it’s becoming increasingly impossible to do so.
It’s especially difficult for honors and IB students considering the insane amount of work along with the difficulty of the classes.
A majority of honors and IB students also participate in extracurriculars such as clubs and sports both inside and outside of school. It’s understandable for it to be difficult to work hard, play hard, and study hard all day every day.
Students are feeling as though they don’t have enough time in the day to complete everything they want or need to get done.
“Being an IB candidate, you can expect a lot of work after school. Especially at the end of the week, in all of my classes, teachers assign homework for over the weekend,” junior Lauryn Mills said.
Students consume most of their time studying and working on school so much that they struggle to fit in the time to be social and talk to friends and family.
Another huge factor in this is sleep, students who spend most of their time on school work barely have enough time to sleep.
According to the 2018 Fairfax County Youth Survey, less than 30% of students reported getting eight or more hours of sleep on a school night, ranging from 16.9% of twelfth-grade students to nearly half of eighth-grade students.
Having a lot on your plate is normal for most highschool students but it’s important to get enough sleep each night in order to have enough energy to function throughout the day.
“I’m usually really tired at the end of the day, but I can’t go to sleep because I usually have a test or deadline for something due the next day so it gets difficult trying to find time for it all in one day,” junior Zack Nebeyu said.
“On a good day, I go to sleep at 1-2am which I know isn’t the best time but there’s not much I can do. I have a lot on my plate,” Nebeyu said.
Students often end up finding time for their work in places where they should be relaxing or focusing on other things. Times like their lunch period, or during school related breaks/holidays, and even late at night when they should be sleeping.
“You often find yourself spending a lot of time not only teaching/reviewing/ studying the content in every small time bracket that you have. Whether that be lunch or W4. It makes it difficult to find time to do normal things like be a teenager,” Mills said.
These times were made in order for students to get a break from their workload, the fact that students see these days as an opportunity to get more work done should say a lot about the burden these students hold.
Students should have the opportunities to enjoy their teenage years while they can as well as being able to keep up with their school related responsibilities. However, that’s become more and more impossible this year with these unfamiliar circumstances.