I came into this year thinking it could be stress-free. Or at least as stress free as college can be. I signed up for 17 credits, including Real Analysis, arguably the school’s hardest course, but thought I was making it okay be pairing it with gen chem, 2 seminars, and ceramics. I was wrong. It’s possibly more work than I’ve ever had—seminars do NOT mean an easy work-load, apparently. Add this to the fact that I have less free time than ever and I’m in pretty bad shape.
I signed up for class cabinet this year because I thought it would be fun. I was totally unaware that my commitment to that put me on Student Congress, Student Activities Board, and a sub-committee. In addition, we don’t have a male activities director, so I have twice the work to do on cabinet already. There’s a Bible study I really want to do on Monday night. I have class from 8am-9pm on Tuesdays, save the 9:25 block. I even have meeting twice a month during dead hour. As of now, Wednesdays are free, and I work the math lab from 7-11 on Thursday. Somewhere in here I also need to find [a lot of] extra time to go to the art annex and work on my ceramics projects.
I’d probably be able to manage this if I weren’t in dire need of a second job, but I am if I have any hope of making next semester’s loan payments. I’m going to start looking for somewhere to work weekends, but this takes up at least half of my time to do schoolwork. I get stressed so easily. I stress about the possibility of being stressed. I know I’ve over-shot myself, and I don’t know what to do about it.
I feel like I need to drop something. I can’t drop cabinet; we don’t have enough people as it is, and I really like planning activities. It’s just a lot to do by myself. I’m not dropping Bible study; I need that in my life. If you’ve seen me the past week, maybe you’ve noticed I’ve haven’t quite been myself. I feel like there’s such a weight on my shoulders, and I know I’m going to collapse under it if I don’t ease up. I just keep thinking about where I’ll be a month from now if stuff is already piling up. Not to mention last week I found out my shelves at home broke off the wall and shattered my ceramics from high school. That hurt me to the core. Not to mention just a few days ago my car broke down again for no reason and I’m going to be scared to drive it for awhile. I’m running on empty; I barely slept last night. God is great and all (really), but He’s never been one to lay out what I should do (it can never be that easy, can it?), and I’m not getting any help on this either. The way I see it, these are my options:
-Drop Real. This is the class that eats up every minute I have. I can read the book, study the notes, try the problems, repeat several times, and it still doesn’t get easier. Not to mention I don’t even want to do math like this anymore. I love the math department, and math classes are always great to be in, but my heart just isn’t in the work, especially since I figured out I’m absolutely going into econ this summer. That being said, I can’t even imagine how much I’d be disappointing my professors and fellow peers if I dropped. I’d be so full of shame. There are only four of us duking it out (pun intended) to beat the class as is. On top of that, I know that Real could help me get into grad school for econ, because there is similar math involved in some areas. But I don’t even know if I want to go to grad school… I also have this thing about me where I like to do things the hard way, and keeping this course would definitely be the hard way.
-Drop my American Foreign Policy Sem. It would free me up Tuesdays from 6:30-9. That’s it though; the class isn’t much more than reading. It’s been rough so far though because the book I need that shipped a long time ago still isn’t here so I’m 200 pages behind. I really want to be in this class though. I actually ENJOY it. It’s round-table discussion based and reminds me of my econ courses.
-Drop my seminar on International Financial Markets. This is a T/Th 8 am, and when I signed up for it, I thought it was on markets AND investments. I already had a class in financial markets by a professor that can’t be topped. However, this is probably most pertinent to what I’m doing, and again, it’s interesting. I like it, and there’s very little work outside of class. VERY little work.
-Don’t get a job and try to delay my loans until after graduation like normal people do. I lose money doing this though, and as a Financial Math major, I don’t like that. I’m spending enough on school as it is.
Writing this out has been nice. Maybe it doesn’t seem like a big deal, but let me assure you, it’s eating at me. Advice?
Differentiation through Integration 
Do you know anyone who has been through the Real Analysis class before? Maybe even twice?
Perhaps an email or telephone call is in order?
Kara first off hey I haven’t seen you or really talked to you in awhile. Secondly calm down! Youre young and you have your whole life ahead of you. You’ve always been so smart but people can only handle so much. You can’t burn yourself out over one semester. My advice would be to drop whatever class effects you graduating when you want to the least. Being broke sucks and having debt sucks even more…trust me…but the reality is normal college students are broke, so you can either jump on board or stress yourself out to no return. I hope I helped alittle. let me know what you decide…I’m here to talk anytime.
Oh Kara, I feel so bad for you. Anything that you want me to do to help? Poor Missy, this is her senior year, and tonight may have been her first home volleyball game. While they were practicing prior to the game, she had a wonderful spike, but when she landed, she completely broke her ACL. She’s probably done with sports for 6-8 mo, so there goes v-ball and track. Then Friday is her first home game as a cheer leader, which she won’t be able to do, unless she’s allowed to sit. She can’t put pressure on her leg for a while, and she is in such great pain. Keep her in your prayers. Sports is her life, and being a senior, nothing worse to think you’re done, but miracles do happen! Just like your life, everything seems to be hitting you at once, but God knows what you can handle and HE must know that you can handle a lot! You should be having fun and enjoying your sr year. I’ll keep you in prayer, too! Let me know if I can help! Love ya!
Let’s have lunch or you come over for dinner this week sometime and we can talk over ideas. 🙂 You have to eat so we’ll multi-task