Have you had a rough semester? You are not alone!
As many students do, I found myself being pulled in a billion different directions between school, work, and life. This semester I thought I could handle all of it, but it caught up to me…
Flashback to the third week of the semester, after working 30-hour weeks and being a full-time student in new classes with new material, my body hit a wall and I got Covid. It put me in bed for two entire weeks. Fast forward to early November, I got lice and tonsillitis at the same time.
Week after week, it felt like everything went the opposite of “easy”. It was the hardest, most grueling semester and time in my life thus far for so many reasons.
The amount of work I missed during the time I was out of school was incredible, and the amount of time it took me to make up the missed assignments, while also keeping up with current material, was exhausting. I was struggling more and more as the semester went on with motivation and energy. Each week seemed longer than the last, and my to-do list just kept building item by item, and assignment by assignment.
I got through it in the end, but it has taken, and will continue to take, some time to debrief and de-stress from the past semester.
There are so many different things people may struggle with. Whatever your situation and struggle are, it can become overwhelming to the point of exhaustion, and can take a toll on your mental, physical, and emotional health, as it did mine.
See, what I failed to realize when committing myself to a lot of areas at the beginning of the semester, was that while productive struggle is healthy and initiates growth, there can be unproductive struggle and overworking downfalls as well.
When I started to feel myself floundering, I tried to fix it myself. When that failed, I reached out to my teachers, and their help is the reason I got through the semester with passing grades. The lesson I learned, despite hearing it many times before, was to ask for help.
Do not give up from the stress of whatever challenges you are facing. Reach out to someone and talk it through, that includes people here at Vol State. You could talk to someone at the Advising office on your campus, or utilize the online resources for mental health.
Support yourself by letting others support you.
