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December 7, 2007 > Opinion > We all have work, so quit complaining about it

We all have work, so quit complaining about it

By Sean McBeath | Thresher Editorial Staff

“I do not really have that much work, I am just bad at managing my time.”

These are words that you will never hear from a Rice student. Why? Because the competition does not end at getting good grades; everyone knows that successful students do not sleep or have friends. You have to be miserable to make your 4.0 GPA mean anything.

Mealtimes become competitions to see who has the most papers and tests, who has slept the least this week and who has the most classes. It is almost like everyone forgets that we are all Rice students, or that they chose their own classes. If you have got so much work, spend less time complaining about it and more time getting it done.

Somewhere along the line, the notion that successful students are unhappy got drilled into our collective consciousness. We start admiring people who have the ability to go a week without sleeping and take 25 hours every semester. And I am not implying that these people are not praiseworthy, because what they accomplish is not easy.

But I think we should look up to people who we do not see working, the ones who breeze through college without ever seeming to put pencil to paper. College is not supposed to be hell. Why do we envy the miserable and fail to recognize the brilliance it takes to maintain balance?

It is an epidemic at Rice, and I am sure it happens at other schools, too. We spend all our time focusing on grades and forget to have fun. College is about much more than your GPA. I am not encouraging you to stop going to class, but I would not criticize you too much if you did. Now is a time when you are going to meet people who will end up all over the country. If you play your cards right, in 10 years you will have high-ranking connections in every industry across America.

Maybe you do not want any friends, and you are going to reminisce about the 98 percent you got on your Physics final freshman year and keep those grades on your refrigerator forever.

But my guess is that pictures from Wiess College’s Night Of Decadence and Sid Rich’s ’80s Party are going to make you considerably happier in your old age than straight-As.

Students everywhere, often plagued by parents with high expectations, commit themselves to ruinous course schedules and then spend the rest of their four years trying to hold themselves to an unreachable standard. You can spot them because they look like zombies. I am sure that you know someone in your class like that. It is even likely you only know them by name and have never seen them in real life.

True, college is about getting educated. You should learn something here. You should try to get good grades. But it should not be at the expense of your well-being. When you find yourself saying, “Well, I did not sleep last night because I have two papers due Friday and three tests next week,” you should consider the wisdom of what you are doing to yourself.

So stop bragging about how much work you have. Start bragging about how much fun you have. Just because you do not manage your time or your schedule very well does not mean that everyone close enough to hear you should suffer for it.

Sean McBeath is a Martel College sophomore, news designer and calendar editor.

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