Late October and early November is a time of insanity for students.
As midterms and projects pile up, students from different faculties all feel the workload, but programs and courses are not the same and stress often turns into one-upmanship between faculties.
The battle over who is more stressed and with better reason raises questions of what different groups of students think of one another. What faculty is really the most stressed, and who simply complains more about their experience?
Music
Serena Meharchand, a second-year music major studying voice, shared with The Cord that the most stressful part of her program is having to balance practicing her music repertoire and regular academic requirements such as essays and exams.
Meharchand confesses that while academics are important, musical performance is more important “because that’s really what you’re here for, to develop your instrument.”
When questioned about which faculty complains the most, she feels every faculty is equally overwhelmed; biz kids at midterms, arts students writing papers and science students during labs.
Yet Meharchand believes that “people don’t know what music people do so they don’t know how and why we are stressed.”
Simon Tse, a third-year double degree music voice performance and general science student, is definitely feeling the pressure.
Tse is feeling stressed from the endless papers, midterms and performances for both faculties. He admits “the month of November is going to be crazy.”
Tse’s advice to combat student stress entails “comfort food like Kraft Dinner, drinking, partying, the gym, sports and massage therapy.”
Science
Kathleen French, a second-year kinesiology student, feels that for all students every part of university can be stressful.
As a kin student, she is stressed by “group projects, presentations, exams, tests, lab reports, marks, social life, lack of sleep and money; I could go on forever,” said French.
French also finds her involvement in intramurals, Fashion ‘n’ Motion, planning for an exchange and instructing aerobics adds to her stress levels. She suggests exercise, the gym, dancing, socializing and watching TV to de-stress as a student.
French discloses, “My faculty complains the most, that’s mainly because of the labs. They last three hours so that’s basically two classes, meaning two exams.”
Business
Second-year business student Carleigh Sisson admits that she’s a little tense around this time of year, just like the rest of the students in her program. “Exam after exam, project after project, I’m always working,” she said.
“Right after I finish a test there’s another one right away to study for; I can never relax.”
In terms of coping with her workload, her only comment was, “All I can do is take things one at a time. I can’t worry about the next exam until the first one is done.”
Arts
Marius Jongstra, a second-year geography and environmental studies student said that in general, faculty of arts students “seem to get stressed about deadlines more than anything else.”
Jongstra continued, stating that schoolwork is his greatest stress factor. In order to cope with stress, he said, “I try and get a lot of sleep. I find that’s what really relaxes me and helps me out.”
A former business major himself, Jongstra feels that “business students definitely whine about their stress and workload. They’re not the only ones with midterms.”
Jen Finlay, another second-year environmental studies student, had more to say about Laurier’s business students. “They definitely stress out the most,” she commented. “The workload in the arts is comparable, especially in my program.”
Finlay also discussed how, although business students seem more stressed out, the arts workload is “similar, just in a different format.”
Students from different faculties tend to live, work and hang out together, so it’s natural that some rivalries would exist between them.
It is very difficult to say for sure what faculty is the most stressed out, simply because people cope with stress and work differently.
If stress differs in accordance to individual and program, all that can really be gathered from looking at students’ stress is that rivalries certainly do exist between groups in this ‘competition’ of stress – rivalries that will likely always be present.
