I think I speak for many of my fellow students when I say that this semester has been exhausting. While it is wonderful to be back together in person again after a long six months apart, this semester has been a challenging one. Schoolwork has been compressed and piled on top of us more than ever, and the professors are feeling the weight of the sheer amount of work as well.
For those of us who were here last spring, sometimes it feels as if we are waiting to be sent home again. We are shouldering the mental and emotional weight of eight months of living in a pandemic, and it is hard. We did not expect to be experiencing this, and we were not prepared. Despite all of these challenges, it has been rewarding to be here this semester, and not to be learning online again.
Let’s address the elephant in the room here, though: having no breaks in a four-month semester is draining physically, mentally and emotionally. For some of us, this is the longest we have been away from home—many students would go home for fall break or just for the weekend, but since off-campus travel is being discouraged this semester, there is a sense of isolation from those back home. This may especially present challenges for students living away from home for the first time or experiencing homesickness.
Having no breaks (except for Day of Prayer and Fall Respite) gives us little time as students and faculty to rest. In Genesis, God created the Sabbath as a blessing for man. God knew that man could not sustain continuous work. We need breaks in order to be able to function to the best of our ability and to maintain our health. Day of Prayer and Fall Respite were wonderful days, but because they were the only two days off, I, at least, felt a pressure to use those days to do all the things I had been wanting to do, and that I had run out of time to do on normal days. This resulted in my filling those days to the brim and not seeking rest, which is certainly something I regret. The Sabbath was given to us as a gift, and it has been difficult to use the gift of rest this semester without feeling guilty for not using our time to study.
This compressed semester has had an effect on our collective mental health as well. While doing homework all the time is not healthy, neither is the other extreme, never doing homework. So how, in this shortened, compressed semester, are we supposed to find a healthy balance between work and rest?
Here is my advice: make sure you are doing things that fill you up, not just things that empty you. Homework can sap our mental energy, and lack of sleep can affect every facet of our lives. I would advise all of us to guard our sleep—being well-rested affects our perspectives on the things around us, and it allows us to be alert and more fully present with whatever we are doing.
Everyone has different ways of recharging and filling up, so I think it’s important that we figure out what helps us to feel re-energized. Reading Scripture and praying, as well as sleeping, are universals that can help everyone, introvert or extrovert. From there, even the smallest things, like watching an episode of television or spending time with friends, can change your day. Let’s spur one another on for the remainder of the semester and remember to rest.