March Madness is over and the April Frenzy has hit campus like a pile of books. Literally.  After the second national title in three years, we suddenly find ourselves up to our necks in group projects, papers and work we held out hope would never be assigned. All those assignments we saw in the syllabus in the beginning of the semester and promptly forgot about now have looming deadlines. 

April is here and “surprise!” it’s trying to ruin your life. We find ourselves trudging back to the library to tackle mountains worth of work all assigned within the past week. We aren’t ready. But here we are. 

In true April fashion, the end of the semester appears out of nowhere. The reverberation of panic throughout campus reminds us all that there is not enough time.  And,  as  the weather warms up,  the motivation to stay in the library all weekend plummets. At least in the winter, the library was warm so being stuck in the library with work wasn’t as hard as now. 

Even though April is the same every year with piles of work raining down on us in a short time period, we’re never truly prepared for it. Especially when it happens the week after Easter break, a National Title, and a two-day week. We weren’t ready to be assigned important papers, we thought the next exam was further off than next week, we forgot about the debate we signed up for at the beginning of the semester, and all of a sudden everything is due in the same week. 

April panic brings May finals? April is usually a hectic month but it is amplified when professors and students are desperately trying to make-up for lost time. Especially when Tuesday/Thursday classes have missed a week and a half of classes with no Univeristy schedule change to make-up classes by taking from the Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule. 

We shouldn’t be expected to make-up a week’s worth of assignments on top of the already heavy workloads that characterize the end of the semester. The University should re-arrange the schedule to help students and professors make-up for lost time; instead of cramming assignments and lectures into an already overloaded month.