So at college there are bound to be times in which an all-nighter is pulled to finish work, study for a test or to spend it with friends doing nothing productive.
I feel it is my duty to elaborate on my reasons for doing these ghastly events. Also, to expound on a few of my own adventures into the wee hours of the morning.
TO begin we must define what "all nighter" means. According to a survey I did, an all nighter is where you stay up all night and then go about your normal (or sort of normal) routine the next day without sleeping.
Using this definition, I have never done an all nighter. Also, I must say that I have never stayed up past 8am. So I am not an expert on this topic and so we will be looking at the special casses of staying up really late. Also, for the sake of ease, I will refer to staying up really late as all nighters.
First off, let me say that all-nighters are not bad (for certain reasons). At school there are just to many things going on and trying to juggle them all is hopeless. With, school, work, friends and sleeping, things have to give way to each other once in a while. I for the most part try not to give up sleep to much but there is defenatly less of it this year as compared to last.
On average I get about 7 hours of sleep each night.
So, why do an all -nighter? Well, for starters, there is not enough time during the day to finish the big parts of school, such as big essays, study for midterms or class projects. For example, as of right now, my roommate is going to stay up all night writing a 5 page essay on whether the constitution or the articles of confederation are more democratic. He has been working on it for the past few days, getting together the information he needs and now he is shutting himself away from the world to write it.
For me, this Thursday, I have to turn in my Perspectives Book. That means that I have to redo a lot of drawings, alter them, write descriptions and put them into a book format. Then go and get it printed and bound. I will have some very late nights this next week as I spend hours sitting in computer labs working on this project.
The other reason for staying up all night, aside from school work, is friends. Night is when college students are "free" from school work, or its when they wont do it. So that is when things happen. This year so far, I have not gotten to bed before 2:30 am on a weekend. I have even had one night where I was up until 5am and another until 4am. A few nights ago I was up until 2:15 am watching a movie (bad idea, on a weeknight).
Last year there were also quite a few late nights for projects and other non-school things.
There was the time I stayed up all night talking with people and then drove a friend to the airport at 6:30am and the other time where I spent 6 hours straight, (from 11pm-5am) working on a computer model of a flashlight for a class.
Basically, all nighters are almost a necessity at college, at least a couple times each quarter, not only for work but for fun. The down side to staying up late is that it suppresses your immune system so it is easier to get sick and a lot of the next day is burned up in catching up on sleep. OR, as good college students do, you don't catch up and just add it to the sleep deficit that you already have. :) Oh, it is also really fun, especially after 3am or so becuase things get really funny.
