Hello, my lovely readers (if there really are any of you besides my editors–really, I can’t tell). I hope that last week went well for you and that you were able to finish most, if not all, of your midterms (and that even more hopefully, you feel good about at least one or two). However, as usual, the semester doesn’t end there. Classes are chugging through the remaining material, cramming it all into our already fatigued brains. But take heart! We’re nearly through, and soon, we’ll have two extra days to relax and spread our work over.

Now, over the course of each semester, I think we can all agree that we do quite a bit of reading. Well…Have you ever pondered how much “quite a bit” really amounts to? 

Until this semester, I never sat down and calculated (roughly) how much assigned reading I do. But as an atypical blog post, I decided that it would be worth the extra math. To give some background, four out of the six classes I am taking (and yes, I count my lab as a separate class) assign weekly readings. These readings vary from ten pages, such as with a lighter lab reading, to thirty or even forty pages, which are the more common textbook chapter readings. However, to give a more consistent number I could use to multiply with, I decided to round these numbers to twelve for the lab readings and thirty-five for the chapter readings. 

Now, without knowing these numbers, a sensible person would guess that the reading amount for eight weeks in college would total to a couple hundred–maybe 200. Right? Not quite… By calculating the numbers for all three of my weekly chapter readings and my weekly lab manual readings (by eight, of course), I ended up with… Wait for it… Keep waiting…

A whopping 936 pages. Now, maybe this number may not seem impressive to some of you, but for someone who never expected to reach over 300 pages with her school readings, this number made me doubt my math. But even if I subtracted a 100 or 200 to account for potential errors, the total is still staggering–836 or 736 pages. That’s like an entire Steven King novel–if you’re into his longer works, or if you’re into his works at all. Either way, that’s a substantial amount of psychology, music, and anatomy and physiology per week.

So, if you ever question the rigors of college, try keeping tabs on the number of pages you read or the number of hours you spend studying and working on projects. But at the very least, admire the effort that you’re putting in. College isn’t easy–and I can’t stress that enough to anyone–but it is rewarding and a way to prove your intellectual capabilities. Enjoy the rest of your week, and keep holding strong!

Nursing students unite!