Chill out CMU, life doesn’t have to be this hard
Sometimes the stress is unnecessary
Midterms bleed into majors, which swallow up lives. That’s the trend on competitive college campus, where extracurriculars and research bloom into huge time commitments and leave us going, “Well, shit.”
Let’s not make this campus into a culture of stress. Andrew Carnegie said “My heart is in the work,” but he never said “My heart IS my work.”
College is stressful. CMU is stressful. We just want to pass those goddamn classes that are somehow necessary to our degree but make no sense to our overworked brains. On top of that, maybe buggy or practice or your noisy neighbours are forcing us awake at fucking four in the morning.
During the Friday night of Mid-semester Break, students occupy the quiet study floor of Hunt Library.
Last night, I had a nightmare: the shipment of my biology textbook was delayed and I received an advanced Mandarin grammar textbook instead. This dream was fundamentally absurd. I’m not taking Mandarin. I already got my biology textbook.
We’re on Chapter 22 already. IT’S MID-SEMESTER. The grind is beginning, and if you’re in 122 or Concepts, the slog to a passing grade probably began in the first week of classes.
But we’re on this campus, right here, right now, because we’re passionate about something. Or multiple things. We might be passionate about drones, or about code, or about the geopolitical influences of a burgeoning powerhouse like China as it establishes major footholds in the South China Sea, but something.
At the Night of the Dancing Dead, the University of Pittsburgh Ballroom Team members pose in fabulous costumes.
I don’t hear that. I know you’re tired and irritated and ready to strangle the TA in your class, but I don’t know what you dream of doing.
We’re on Carnegie Mellon’s campus for a reason, and while we’re here, we may as well make it enjoyable.