By Brian Craddock
“I haven’t slept in three days.”
It’s a familiar sentence to hear when a visitor to the first year animation program drops by the classrom in room N100.
These students, especially those just arriving from high school, where class schedules are typically uniform, often find it quite a shock when they come face-to-face with the bizarre schedules that college students are faced with.
Moriah Whelan-Ellis, an animation student in her first year at college, and one of the participants in the conversation opening this article, knows that all too well. At several points she went days without sleep, including one approximately eight day stint last semester. Frequently, Whelan-Ellis and her colleagues stay very late after class. Sarcastically, Jennifer Eldracher, in the same class as Whelan-Ellis, has described her experience as “wonderful.”
When asked about why the sleep situation is so bad among animation students, both Eldracher and Whelan-Ellis explain that it’s mainly because of the unique nature of their work. They say that while working from home isn’t out of the question “all you really need is a pegboard,” but working late, and getting a lot of hours in at college allows students to work in peace and lets them “check our work with the professor.”
Animation students aren’t the only ones struggling with sleep. First-year general arts & science student Maaike Bets remembers how at high school, “We were only there from 8 to 2:15,” and how at college, “There was more time to do homework.”
Game design student, Jennifer Crosby, also coming straight from high school, takes a not-so-novel approach to her lack of sleep: “I sleep through the day,” Crosby says that most nights “I really don’t sleep much.”
Ultimately, no matter how many doctors and sleep experts say things to the effect of “You need (insert number of hours) of sleep every night,” it seems most people probably won’t.