(Photo courtesy blog.cort.com) Midterms typically occur halfway through a college semester.

Jessica Daniliuk
Connector Staff

As of today, we will be on our eighth week of school. It feels like we got here just yesterday, but we have been in school for seven weeks! When I was a freshman in high school someone told me that each year feels like it goes by faster. This idea has proven to carry over into college.

The main thing that is scaring me about midterms being soon is how fast this year has gone by already. Anyone I’ve talked to about this, including faculty, are also completely shocked at where we are in the academic calendar. It makes me feel old. As a kid that was all I’ve ever wanted, but now that I’m here I just want time to stop.

The fast progression has made me feel like I’m drowning in work. As an English major, most of my midterms consist of papers or some sort of writing assignment.

With that being said, when I do actually have an exam, I feel ten times the amount of pressure. I almost forget how to study and how to actually take a test, so I feel the need to re-teach myself every time.

I’ve gotten so used to taking my sweet time working on a paper and following my own schedule, so now the time constraints on tests have proven to be my biggest issue. A major part of my test taking process is staring at a wall for two minutes to just breathe and recollect myself for a bit.

But when you have fifty questions and fifty minutes to do them, there is no time to zone out.

For me, time has been the major issue. I typically feel like I know most of the content but when I’m given a certain time frame to complete something in, all of that knowledge goes out the window.

It’s the idea of when someone asks you to name a candy brand off the top of your head, and suddenly you’ve never had a single piece of candy in your entire life.

With midterms I just feel overwhelmed. It’s this weird feeling of breaking down your assignments and individually it does not seem like that much. But when you put everything together, it’s an entirely different story.

I feel like I haven’t had a free minute to just exist with no agenda in the last two weeks.

After midterms are over and I go back to my normal amount of work, I plan to take a moment just for myself. Especially since we just came back on campus and this is new for a lot of people, it’s amazing that we are juggling a lot of this already.

Everyone deserves to treat themselves and  celebrate the fact that we have gotten through half of the semester. December is quickly approaching and while the concept of time is terrifying, that means a month-long break is coming up soon. And personally, I am counting down the days until then.