Here’s to every student

Here’s to every student who isn’t on Tumblr because they are working two jobs and taking classes and driving their little sister to soccer practice and they don’t have time for social media.

Here’s to every student who is doing good to pay tuition, let alone buy cute notebooks and fine tip markers.

Here’s to every student who passed on a major they were interested in to take the major that would pay more money because they have responsibilites to meet and don’t have the luxury of studying what they would like.

Here’s to every student who has to choose a major based on how long it will take to complete because they need to be working full time, instead of choosing a major based on how much they could contribute to society in the future if they had the option of their first choice.

Here’s to every student using their school’s food pantry because even with loans there isn’t enough fiancial aid to cover all their expenses, stay in school, and still eat.

Here’s to every student who is doing this on their own, without parental help. 

Here’s to every student who is under so much pressure in their personal life that focusing long enough to complete homework is a victory, never mind spending hours making color-coded study guides for exams.

Here’s to every student with a learning disability who has to work twice as hard to get half the grade.

Here’s to every student with social anxiety who shows up for speech class anyway.

Here’s to every student who is proud of their work despite the constant criticism they get for not majoring in a STEM field.

Here’s to every student doing this one step at a time because that’s all they can see right now. 

Here’s to every student who has every reason not to be in school, not to get good grades, not to keep coping with all the stress, but choose to do it anyway, knowing that the overcoming of obastacles produces resilience, which is far more valuable than a college degree.

I’m so proud of you.

Oh, you got your study voice. Yep, it goes with my pop quiz walk and my term paper face.

My goal in life

I, like many, thought that I was better off studying by myself, that studying with other people would be nothing more than an unwelcome distraction, but guys, I have been converted into the world of study partnerships and here’s why:

1) You’ll have someone to ride the struggle bus with

I’m not gonna lie. Med school is hard, not normal hard, like REALLY hard. The first weeks of school I sort of kept to myself when studying, doing it alone at some obscure corner of the library or maybe at home. It got to the point where I was really stressed out, but I wasn’t reaching out to anyone or commenting about it, because everyone else seemed to have it all together. Well, boy was I wrong. When you find someone you can be honest with you’ll find that other people struggle, too. And what happens is that instead of cowering in the corner being consumed by stress you talk about it for a little while and then move on to the next thing. There is no such thing as feeling sorry for ourselves. I have found that since I have been studying in a group my stress has been significantly reduced and my grades have improved.

_mhiraishi illustration of Hermione hard at work on her studies