What time did you go to sleep last night? When did you wake up this morning? How much coffee do you need to get through your day?

As the new school year begins, every student has dreams of how productive, successful, and not completely exhausted they’ll be this time around. It’ll be different this year, right?

The first few weeks go well; you wake up early and try to look your best. But, little by little, fall activities accumulate, and you start staying up late so you can get your work done after practice. Soon, ten at night turns into eleven turns into twelve and it’s almost time to get up for school, but you’re still balancing chemical equations. Assigned readings fill your backpack, tests pop up on your calendar, and it seems like everyone has a date to Homecoming but you. Fall becomes a whirlwind of deadlines. You work hard, take on responsibilities, and slowly drive yourself insane. But it’s all worth it… right?

In recent years, each incoming classes saddles North Allegheny AP teachers with more students than ever before. This is not because the pool of prospective students is increasing, but rather parents are pushing their kids to take the most rigorous courses to bolster their transcripts. Not to be outdone by academics, many extracurriculars have become more demanding and time-intensive.

It’s no secret that the motivation to load up on AP classes and extra-curriculars is to impress college admissions officers. But getting into a good college is no longer the goal; more and more, the only “acceptable” objective seems to be to get into a great one.

It’s therefore no surprise that an NYU study recently found that modern students experience more stress and earlier burnout than ever before. Paired with unhealthy coping mechanisms like caffeine dependencies and substance abuse, the mental health of teenagers is deteriorating. Expectations have exceeded many students’ capacity for schoolwork and activities.

With a solid spot on Niche as #15 best school district in the nation and #3 in the state, North Allegheny has long been established as a district of excellence. That feeling of greatness, of championship, is not unearned; NA wins debate tournaments, marching band adjudications, and countless different athletic and extra-curricular academic competitions, and the musicals consistently rival their professional counterparts. NA wins; it’s become a fact of life for most students here. The district has a reputation to uphold, and that responsibility falls not only on the administration and faculty but on the students as well. Failure is, essentially, not an option. That attitude and confidence come at a price, though, and, all too often that price is the health and sanity of the students that carry NA to victory.

As a student body, we are at a crossroads. We can continue to allow our anxiety for the future to control our high school years. We can continue to get under  five hours of sleep every night and to ingest inhuman amounts of coffee. We can focus more on admission statistics than whether we’re actually learning. Or, we could take a step back and gain some perspective.

According to NYU, 26% of students interviewed had symptoms of stress-related depression.  Sure, the future is important, but acting as though it’s more important than the present won’t help us. Just because you want to focus on your future doesn’t mean you can’t take care of yourself in the present. 

North Allegheny is a wonderful school with teachers and staff who want to see their students succeed. Above all else, your education is the school’s top priority. Don’t let test scores and council elections fool you — school is about the process, not the result.

In this new year, take the time to relax. Maybe even take a worse grade on a test if it means catching up on sleep. Youth is wasted on the young. Don’t let it be wasted on you because you’re too busy to realize life is happening right now and not just in your adulthood.