Few memes manage to capture my exact emotional temperature, but the viral clip of a man sitting in a chair, hands in the air, eyes filled with tears of disbelief and exhaustion, crying, really captures my attention. “Take me off” has become the unofficial portrait of how I feel right now. At this point in the semester, this image is less of a meme and more of a mirror. I feel just as dishevelled, overwhelmed and emotionally fragile as him, and I’m begging life to “please cut the show.”
The thing about this time of year is that everything hits you all at once. The assignments, final exam preparation and the pressure to perform well all pile up. It’s almost suffocating, and even though I joke about it, the burnout is real. Research supports the idea that the final stretch of a semester is one of the most stressful periods for university students. So, when students say they’re done emotionally, mentally and physically, it’s not because they lack resilience. Wanting this semester to be over is not lazy or dramatic. It is a completely valid response to a workload that is structurally overwhelming.
If I could fast-forward through this semester, I absolutely would. I would gladly forfeit the “character building” of this season of my life and skip straight to Christmas. I don’t want to grow as a person, I want sleep, Netflix and the kind of peace only a finished semester can bring.
But because we cannot skip this semester, the best we can do is learn how to get through it, even if we just barely make it. One of the most important strategies for surviving this time of the year is creating a detailed schedule. It helps keep track of all the tasks that need to be completed and makes all the daunting things that need to be done slightly less intimidating. I also find that scheduling makes me feel more in control. Another coping tip is to take real and intentional breaks. Don’t feel guilty for taking some time to breathe. Rest is not the enemy of productivity.
As overwhelming as this season feels, it is important to remember that these emotions don’t make you weak. They make you human. This stretch demands so much from us and feeling overwhelmed is not a character flaw but a natural response to academic overload.
The only thing that keeps me going is the knowledge that it’s almost over. In about two weeks, I will be able to close my laptop for good, throw out a bunch of manuals, get wrapped up in a warm blanket and sleep until my body — not an alarm — decides that it’s time to wake up.
