As the final weeks of the semester are winding down, we all look to our lord and savior Jesus Christ for some guidance. When that doesn’t work, we drown our sorrows in alcohol and too much Netflix. We always hope that our responsibilities will disappear at the end of binge watching “The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” but unfortunately, the second you turn off the TV and realize it’s 6 in the morning and you have a test in 2 hours, you begin to panic and hope by taking a nap on your textbook the information will be forced into your strung out brain. The stress of being a college student while also being a general person is way too much to handle, most of the time.

I don’t understand why all college classes insist on throwing 14 papers, 23 tests, and 8 project at us within the last three weeks of class. Do they expect us to finish all of these assignments on time as well as actually turn in “A” worthy work? I’m not sure if they remember what it’s like to be in college, but they have to know that it feels impossible. On top of all of that, we have to find jobs for the summer, schedule our classes for next semester as well as possible summer classes, deal with a brother who’s trans ( maybe that one’s just for me, but still.)

We always get lectures from our parents about when they were our age they were working 7 jobs, walking 3 miles in the snow to get to school, and still managing to be student body president. First, we all know that’s a load of crap. Second, the cost to get an education is much higher now, not to mention how much the availability of jobs has gone down. The generation above us just don’t get how high the expectations are for us, how we have to continue to reach for the American dream, but what is the American dream anymore?

The stress can become way too much to handle. Sometimes it’s not about the amount of work we have to do, but it’s about what is expected of us. We have to achieve all A’s while maintaining a job that pays for rent and food as well as being a part of multiple extracurriculars and volunteer at an animal shelter in our free time. I just wish the older generation could calm down and try to understand the struggle we go through instead of lecturing us about how they had it so much worse. Stress can be dangerous and the high expectations need to stop if they want us to truly succeed in life.