Diary of a Gen Z Student: Spare a thought for us poor students during college exam season

"You’d be surprised how hard it is to come by sympathy for college students. But we deserve a bit of pity. We’re an exceedingly tired cohort of the population."

Jane Cowan is a student in Trinity College Dublin, where she is in her second year, studying English.

College exam season is upon us! They never mention exam season, when they say that college is the best years of your life.

That detail is conveniently left out of the college prospectus. And for good reason. The last few weeks of the semester definitely feel more like I’m being hit with a stick, less like I’m chasing a carrot.

I’m walking into that library in the morning, trying to remind myself that I’m so lucky to go to college at all. But when you’re staring down the barrel of an all-nighter, to finish an essay for a subject that you didn’t even like in the first place, that stick is very much necessary.

Life’s not all coffee and gossip for us college students. Though we do love to spend €4.50 on a good oat milk cappuccino. We have to do work, too? No one warned me about that! If 

it sounds like I’m looking for sympathy, that’s because I am. You’d be surprised how hard it is to come by sympathy for college students.

But we deserve a bit of pity, at the very least. We’re an exceedingly tired cohort of the population. I know parents of newborns have got it bad; nurses and doctors have a tough time too. But spare a thought for us students. 

Having to fit our 12 Pubs of Christmas celebrations into our study schedule. Running on practically no sleep.

This stage of year feels like I’m trying to drive a car that’s been running on empty for the past three days. Inhaling Red Bull at 8am is a terrible way to start your day.

But we do what we have to do to get through it. We’re not exactly a resilient bunch, I’ll admit.

God only knows how I’d cope if I had to walk to college barefoot for miles, the same way my parents did.

And they walked over broken glass the whole way there, no less! Meanwhile, I’m tempted to skip a day of college if I sense even the slightest whisper of rain.

But seriously, this time of year is tough on us. You’re expected to set up camp in the freezing cold library. You get to the library in the dark, you leave and it’s still dark. It’s been a while since I’ve seen the sun in the flesh.

At this rate, I’m beginning to doubt that it’s actually rising. You also have an absurd number of assignments that you will inevitably leave until the last minute.

You live off subpar meals. Chocolate bar for breakfast. Tea and toast for dinner.

You’re consuming worrying quantities of caffeine. Getting worryingly few hours of sleep.

And then, if all that wasn’t bad enough, you have to actually sit those bloody exams at the end of it all. Sweating over an exam paper for two hours is not my idea of a pleasant Tuesday afternoon.

As I’m writing this, I’m sitting in said freezing cold library. And I’m about 85% sure that they’ve turned the air conditioning on in this building. I feel like I’m being observed.

The STEM students are probably conducting a study: at what temperature will students give up on the library? I, for one, am about a two-degree temperature drop away from calling it quits. 

I’m literally typing this with gloves on. Alas, I probably could do with getting some study done.

But a quick glance around me and I don’t feel too guilty about the study I could be doing. I can see that I’m not the only one with this talent for procrastination.

The guy beside me is scrolling through Instagram. In fact, everyone sitting at the same row as me in the library is scrolling on their phones.

I wonder what people did to procrastinate before Instagram existed? Maybe found a good copy of the Golden Pages to flick through. Or bandaged up their bleeding, hypothermic feet after their walk to the library.

But there’s only a few weeks of exam season left. And, sure, then I’ll have to find something else to complain about.

For now, I’ll keep the caffeine levels high, sleep levels low.

Hopefully someone will light a candle for me the morning of that first exam. Or someone will turn that God-forsaken air conditioning off in this God-forsaken library.

The best years of your life? That college prospectus should have told me to invest in a warmer coat.