Workload: They don't always tell you the Truth

When you’re in first year university you may hear the rumour that second year is the hardest year of all four years. After that it is all downhill. I thought to myself, “First year is not so bad! I don’t have an insane workload, how hard can second year be? And if it’s all downhill after that, well I’ll be laughing!”

When you’re in second year you see how your workload has increased exponentially since first year. It comes as somewhat of a shock after the leisurely pace year first year brought. You begin to envy people in first year for their “easy” work and workload. I just kept telling myself that this was the worst year – next year will be easier! I survived second year and made it to third.

When you start third year, you’re eager and excited that you’re finally past the 3 am reports and the weekend trips to the library. Anything will be better than second year. Then you actually start classes. You quickly realize that something is not quite right, and then it hits you – you’ve been lied to! That wonderful rumour that second year is the worst is completely untrue. Third year is perhaps twice, or maybe even three times the work that second year was. You can no longer get away with three references on a research paper – they want seven, or even ten (all scholarly mind you). Websites don’t cut it, not even by a long shot. But then you hear a rumour: third year is actually the hardest, not second year. You breathe deep and desperately cling to the hope that this is true - especially if you are half a credit in overload like I was. Any more work and you feel like you would lose your mind. Then you begin to reminisce on “the good ‘ol days” in first year when the most work you had to do was one report every two or three weeks and a weekly one page write up of your readings. Oh the days when you had time to do all your readings! Now you pick one or two classes that are the most important and do those but no more. There simply is no time to do them all. But you’ll live to write all of your exams and then the relief of summer comes. And the 60-hour week part-time job that actually does seem like relief after the last two semesters.

This is where I am now. Fourth year is looming and I am still clinging to the rumour that fourth year will be easier than third. It may or may not be – I don’t know. There is one thing I know for sure though – there is a light at the end of the four year degree tunnel. At the end of that tunnel I will have a University Degree, and, best of all, there’s no more school work at the end.