School is torture.

University, high school, middle school, elementary… all torture. I’m a senior in university, and I feel like most of my life has been torture. You sit down, shut up, write as fast as possible, and attempt to learn the material at an acceptable rate, and work and work and work and study and work, and try so hard to finish your load of work before the due date lest you be penalized an absurd amount because you were a few hours or even a few minutes late. “Oh, you should have started earlier,” they say. But… when was that? When I was working on other assignments? When I collapsed from exhaustion? While I was working for pay? Oh yeah, when I spent an hour or two talking to friends when I hadn’t for weeks.

It’s work without pay. Actually, no, you’re the one who’s paying tuition for the opportunity to work. You’re paying to work.  All to receive the magical reward of knowledge and a piece of paper. But you’re not an individual. It feels like I’m being churned through a factory.

(Don’t get me wrong, some classes don’t operate like that. But they’re in the minority.)

What pisses me off is that my university has something called a suicide week, but they always seem to focus on things outside of school. It’s always about tossing a phone number around, or telling students not to be afraid to see a counselor. And… yes, these can be helpful resources. But I don’t think anyone sees what kind of severe mental harm academics can have on a person. When I say school is torture, I mean it. Grades aren’t just numbers. If your grades drop, you can lose scholarships you rely on desperately. If you’re an international student, you could be deported. Your resume could suddenly look not so good. And grades can seriously help or hurt someone’s self esteem, especially if you’ve spent years in effort to keep your GPA up. School has made me cry countless times, breaking me down worse than anything. And if you can’t meet a deadline, you’re at fault for poor time management, you need to change your ways. There’s something wrong with you, not the system.

But what if you have to work 20 hours a week and you’re taking 13 credit hours and don’t have a car so you’re spending 4+ hours a day in public transportation and… and so on. Everyone’s situation is different, but school generally doesn’t treat people differently.

Please, if you’re a professor, be flexible. Be considerate. Don’t penalize more than 10% per day late. Please.

Anyway, I should probably be glad that school is my biggest problem right now. A few days ago I was terrified of homelessness and losing everything, so there’s that. However… school is still a serious issue. I firmly believe that our education system is psychologically abusive, and I’m fucking sick of it.