College Stress

More Money, More Problems
But I’m just too broke to buy that expression
By Megan Biscieglia

The most stressful thing about being a college student is being constantly broke. On any given day, I might have between 76 cents and $300 in my checking account. When it’s the later scenario, I feel rich. It’s impossible to be financially stable when I have to balance my work schedule with a class schedule, home work schedule, internship schedule, and maybe if I’m lucky a few minutes to spend with friends.

I would like to know where the colleges seen in movies are; the ones where students are seen partying day and night, usually in their underwear, carefree drinking beer from a bottle, smoking mass amounts of marijuana, and eating Percocet like it’s candy. It’s so unrealistic--bottled beer is way out of budget for a college student.

If these are the best years of our lives, we’re all in for one hell of a life, literally. Stress consumes my every cell during every moment. I have nightmares about seeing negative signs on my bank account statements, which has happened more times than I’d like to mention.

It’s not that students have bad money managing skills. It’s just that we don’t have any money to manage in the first place. I’m on a very strict budget that I rarely exceed. But there just aren’t enough hours in the day to make the kind of cash to make one feel content.

It’s the end of the month which means rent is almost due. It’s also the middle of the semester which means midterms. We’re also in the middle of an economic crisis, which means I got laid off from my job and currently have zero dollars coming in. The stress makes me dizzy.

The positive side to me feeling this stress now is that if I do turn out to be a complete failure I don’t think it will be all that bad. At least I’ll have time! For example, a server at a restaurant is a perfectly respectable job. My mother is one.

However, since I have had the pleasure of receiving a four year college degree some people might view that as a come down. What is there to do about it? I say wait it out, try to do well in school and graduate knowing that even if I am a waitress for the rest of my life, at least I’ll have time for my friends and won’t have homework.