It’s been a long day of sitting and listening and you’ve just been trying to make it through the day without falling asleep. You were up all night studying for three different tests and are just ready to go home.

The bell finally rings to dismiss everyone; you watch as people get in their cars and drive out of the parking lot headed home. Then, you remember that you don’t get to go home just yet because you have work and won’t be home till 9:30 p.m.

As soon as you get home, you shower and finally think you have a moment to relax and remember the pages of homework you have to complete before tomorrow. Drearily, you are up and working on it until midnight.

High school students in all grades are given heavy workloads after spending eight hours at school five days out of the week and are given countless amounts of homework that is debatably not even important. While handling all this, we are told to not stress ourselves out and to get the right amount of sleep over and over. But how can we do that when we are being constantly reminded of the future and how important everything we do now is?

“I normally go to bed around [midnight], but it just depends on how quickly I get my homework done,” sophomore Zaria Black said. “It just depends on my homework if I get to watch TV before going to bed.”

Just because students have many commitments shouldn’t mean they should have to skip out on something they enjoy doing. Students are given about six to eight hours to themselves every day after school, but oftentimes, this time isn’t spent doing relaxing activities. Most sports and other practices last about two to four hours and this doesn’t include those especially long practices for a game that needs to be won or a performance that needs to be perfected.

“I have theater rehearsal from four to seven every day after school, but as we get closer to tech week that could change from seven till like nine,” sophomore Tyler Unger said. “I get home about 7:15-ish and go straight to my computer to start working on pre-cal and world civ homework, which takes about an hour.”

Many high school students also have jobs that take up just as much time as sports or clubs, if not more. Some students get a job just to have a little extra spending money but others have to have jobs in order to help out their families. After long shifts, it could be hard to complete pages of homework when all you want is to go to sleep. Some students not only have jobs but also participate in extracurriculars as well which could make it a lot harder to find time for yourself during a busy week.

“I go straight from Highstepper practice to work every Monday through Wednesday and work four to eight hours shifts, normally getting off at 10:30 p.m.,” senior Madison Kennemore said. “I spend about an hour to an hour and a half doing homework after getting off work, and on school nights [I] don’t make it to bed until midnight to 1 a.m.”

Despite students having to carry all this pressure to get an assignment done on time or be in this place at this time, we always figure it out. We as students should have at least an hour or two out of the day that isn’t lunch or regular sleep to ourselves. Even though we are treated and looked at as young adults we are still kids that get overwhelmed and tired at times. Sometimes breaks are needed in order to be able to get up and do it all the next day but we need to be able to make that decision without being looked at like we are being lazy or not trying hard enough.

“I wake up, come to school, do my schoolwork, play football and go home,” sophomore Blaise Larry-Cox said. “After school, I have football practice then I come home and do my homework.”