Not enough time in the day

By Jessica Clayton

Who has time to do anything? Not this girl. Between schoolwork, after-school activities, my family and my social life, I feel like there is no time in the week to complete anything.
Schoolwork takes up a lot of my time, getting assigned homework in all of my classes, loaded with essays and other projects, there’s just not enough time to complete it all. I don’t want to do work on the weekends, because let’s face it, that’s our time; we’re supposed to relax, not struggle doing work that teachers assign us after a whole week of hard work. I think we learn enough over the course of the week that we don’t need extra things to do on our time off.
I feel like even on the weekends I’m stressed out by school. Some kids that get assigned homework on the weekends aren’t going to turn it in on Monday, so why assign it in the first place? I think after spending seven hours at school, five days a week, we deserve a two-day break where we don’t have to do homework. This includes breaks for holidays, when we are supposed to be on vacation or spending time with family, some teachers just don’t care and assign a huge work -load anyway.
On top of that, kids have all these extra curricular activities like sports and clubs that leave no time for anything but schoolwork. Some kids don’t even get home until late at night, which doesn’t leave any time for anything but homework. Colleges want us to be well rounded, but after work and activities, I don’t have time to do anything else. Then Northwood students are required to do the Charger Challenge. As a sophomore I have 20 hours of community service, plus eight hours of job shadowing; that’s just one more thing to add to the list of responsibilities.
Students are so loaded down with required work and activities that there is no time to actually be a teenager. We’re supposed to be able to “enjoy the time we have as a kid,” not be stressed 24/7 because so much is expected out of us. I want time to actually hang out with my friends and family without worrying about working on the next assignment.
If students had less work, they would try harder because they wouldn’t have to worry about getting everything done; they would just work hard on one assignment. There are so many things students miss out on, like sports, clubs and just being a teenager, because there’s simply not enough time in the day. So what do we give up next, sleep? Oh wait, too late, I already don’t have time to do that either. Teachers, we’re only young once.