I’m tired boss. I’ve had a really rough semester and I can’t look at my calculus without my eyes glazing over. Now that it’s time for the final I’m looking back at all the concepts I had “breakthrough” moments with… And I got nothing. Can’t remember a lick. I don’t have any gusto in me still, I’m already planning to retake the course but fuck me ive never experienced burnout like this.
Is this normal?
Get in contact with student support services, most universities have some sort of mental health “crisis” support system. (Crisis between quotes because what they can handle varies wildly). They can not only help you with your burnout, but also get in contact with your prof and let them know. You could (likelihood depends on the university) get a second chance at a later date without having to retake the full course.
Unfortunately, burnout and similar health issues have skyrocketed between university students since covid, the universities try to keep up, but… funding processes suck, so it really depends on the state/county/specific university.
All the best!
Its not that severe I don’t think, though it’s good to know that’s an option, I think I just need to do what I can on this final and move on for now, I already get an extra hour for my disability, but I would love nothing more than to just take the test and be able to not think for like a week or more, ugh, and not look at converging functions
It could get pretty bad pretty fast if you are not careful. Been in the situation a couple of times, thinking “meh. I will push through it”. And then it got ugly. Please take care of yourself and take all the help you can get.
Yeah that’s true, I think I need to get better about actually taking breaks every single hour instead of pushing on.
Whats not helping is I’m no longer working and bills are coming hard and fast, so I’m actively trying to think up a way to make money while doing all this
When I was a student, I tried to take rest days before exams if possible. During my bachelor I had a strict rule of never studying more than 6 days a week, 10 hours a day (including commute). Having some time off was fundamental. I dropped that rule during the master and barely graduated :/
Now as a teacher, I often see students not able to pace themselves, giving it their all and collapsing half way through exam season. Understanding your own limits is rough… in particular when it had worked for so many months. But they overlooked how each month took a toll and at some point you can’t keep it all together.
If you see your burnout lasting more than a couple of days of rest, reach out. The sooner the better.
I also feel like a lot of students don’t know how to set goals for studying. For instance studying for math may be solving x problems in y time, which roughly mimics test time. If you can’t do that, time to reach out for help rather than spinning wheels.
Mini-rant incoming
There is that, sure, but also courses are structured to make sense as a whole, such that the end connects to all the pieces you have been gathering along the way. Therefore, it is often easier and mire fulfilling to study at the end of the semester, when the end goal of the techniques studied is shown. On the other hand, postponing all to the end is obviously a bad plan. So to avoid that, courses are structured with mid-terms and homework hand ins and so on to force students into learning a bit at a time, thus often loosing track of the global picture and making studying feel harder and less motivating. Plus, constant testing is a source of increased stress and lower productivity (who would have guessed).
I don’t know the solution to this conundrum, I just rant about it.
I’ve taken junior level college classes that relied on concepts taught from freshman year without any class in-between reinforcing that knowledge. Hell, I’ve had college courses continue concepts that were last taught to me in middle school.
I feel like part of the problem is that students demand full understanding as to why they need to know a specific something immediately while having little context as to why this may be important. There are also cases where it may be important to some students in the class, but the school doesn’t know which students yet because those students aren’t there.
You sound like me at uni. If you can, go and try get your exam deferred, take a decisive week break and get back to it at a pace that works better for you.
I have 4-5 realllly dark spots on my transcripts because of my stubbornness. Didn’t help in job searching very much.