While students constantly receive criticism for slacking off towards the end of the school year, teachers do not understand the stress and lack of sleep they undergo.

After a brief survey conducted, the majority of students wake up at six AM. During the nine months of school, while performing endless homework tasks, not to mention chores and duties at home. When factoring in the part-time jobs many upperclassmen possess, sleep deprivation catches up.

Extra stress occurs with outside responsibilities. When I worked at Smoothie King for a short period of time, I worked 28 hours during a school week, and most of those days, I closed the store. I came home at 10 o’clock every night. Once home, my night consisted of approximately two hours of homework, another hour of studying and dinner. Four hours of sleep per night logically leads to a sleep deprived and irritated student.

Students with jobs face more work than normal students, and many times they challenge themselves to take AP classes. AP students take bundle after bundle and encounter absurdly intricate homework assignments and projects throughout the year. These students especially deserve some patience towards the year’s end. On top of the exhaustion, preparation for their upcoming AP exams proves strenuous and time consuming.

Multiple students sign up for one or more AP exams, which require many study sessions after school. Once released from the study sessions, they proceed home to execute homework tasks and other responsibilities.

Along with study sessions, remember that colleges love glancing at the amount of after school activities such as clubs, sports and fine arts, not to mention community service. These extracurricular activities keep students up at night due to the homework load and family responsibilities they possess.

This year especially seemed tough on students with the snow days off from school. The inclement weather caused a hectic stretch of teachers placing more work on students during the entirety of the semester to keep from falling behind. The hectic semester’s end hit another gear recently in attempts to finish up the year’s mandatory curriculum. Therefore, completing more work than usual pressures students while slowing down continues as the most popular wish.

“All I want at this point in the year is to catch up on sleep and relax. My parents and teachers don’t understand the stress I’m under and think that I’m just being lazy. It’s really frustrating,” sophomore Brandon Greene said.

Throughout the entire year, students stay after school for study sessions, clubs, sports, and other responsibilities just to go home and do homework. After 180 days of this retched routine, students suffer not from laziness, but exhaustion due to the never-ending workload.