Fun fact: College students are the most sleep deprived group of people. As a college student, I find that one of the things that is missing from my day is sleep. Yes, I know. Sleep is a vital indicator of overall health and wellbeing. Getting sleep is important. But if you go to any college campus and ask any random student, there's no doubt most students would say they didn't get more than seven hours of sleep. For many students, getting eight hours or more of sleep is nearly impossible.
People (middle school and high school students) might ask, "Why do college students get so little sleep?" Well, let me answer that question for you.
Let's break down a typical day in the life of a college student. There are 24 hours in a day. If a student has a schedule that starts at 11:00 am and runs until 7 pm, that is a total of 8 hours, purely at school and accounting for a lunch and snack in-between. (Who's got time for dinner when you're in class?)
First of all, in college, there are these things called courses, which are just your classes. In middle school and high school, students had the luxury of having teacher who actually taught the material so that kids could learn it. However, in college, professors believe students should go to class already understanding the material and just take a seat for nearly 2 hours while the professor speeds through the material. It is my belief that some professors don't really know that their students do not understand what they are saying. It has definitely happened to me that I've been in a class and been unsure what the professor is saying. Now a reasonable person would say, "Just ask a question!" However, depending on the type of professor you have in college, you'd have to go to "office hours" to ask questions. Office hours are often once or twice a week at a specific 2 hours block of time per week. Back to process of learning the material... if I spend 2 hours in class hearing the lecture, then I go to do homework and I need to re-learn the material for 3 hours, that is already 5 hours of my day gone for one class! Often college students have 4 classes a semester. If students work on homework for 3 classes each night: 9 hours of homework each night.
Next, college textbooks. I absolutely despise purchasing college textbooks. At the exorbitant prices of college tuition nationwide, the price of textbooks should already be accounted for in the tuition. The heavy weight of college textbooks make it hard to study on campus if you're trying to study in-between classes. A normal college textbook that has a hardcover would weigh around 5 pounds. Keeping in mind the distance from a library to each classroom, you would see how heavy and exhausting it would be to carry just two of those textbooks. Though sometimes the college libraries have the textbooks on "reserve or hold," those textbooks are often the wrong edition. So, good luck trying to find the right passage to read! Carrying textbooks is a waste of time when you could just studying in your room. To make efficient use of your time, it's a good idea to schedule your classes one after the other, but the chances of that "perfect" schedule happening is rare. My main point: there's some time, rounding up to 2 hours, wasted between classes.
Next, people have things besides classes: clubs, jobs, internships, the gym, grocery shopping, a life... There needs to be one hour of the day devoted to recreational activities. In college, students are really expected to be members of college clubs, do internships, and keep aware of dates for competitions or events like special seminars or job fairs.
Adding up the hours 9 hour school day+ 6 hour studying time +1 hour recreation = 16 hours /24 hours.
24-16= 8 hours. (Do you think students actually get the 8 hours of sleep?)
Nope. There's going to office hours (Why do you think college days start at 11:00am? Office hours start at 8:00am), internet, working at a job, there's travel time for getting from your class to home or your dorm room. Besides classes and homework, there is something called being a human and having a curiosity about the world: reading books, playing an instrument, watching TV, browsing the internet, writing this blog, etc.
So, I have come to the conclusion that 8 hours of sleep each day for a college student is something of a unicorn. It could be a beautiful fantasy. It could be perhaps possible. But ultimately, it is universally acknowledged as a dream.
Colleges have now started taking note of sleep deprivation in their students and have been making small changes. My recommendation: Get better professors who will teach the material thoroughly, instead of hopping over material and wasting time in class. Seriously, why don't college professor teach? Could it be that the college professors are sleep deprived?
Write in the comment sections if you have had a class that's been a major drain on your sleep habits.
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