By Kara Hallam

Staff Writer

As I write this, I find myself ridiculously sick. I have a speech sixth period so I refuse to go home any time before that.

Last year for a journalism assignment, I had to write a column on how school pressure leads students to get seriously ill. This year it seems like the trends are of the exact opposite and it’s because of school pressure students cannot get sick.

Students cannot miss school for several reasons: whether they are worried about their absences counting against them for semester exams or their teachers will get frustrated with them or the one I find most popular of all: they cannot even take a chance getting a day behind.

The 21st century educational system in America has shifted towards a more competitive environment revolving around maintaining a perfect resume with perfect grades, perfect numbers of extracurriculars and perfect test scores. Students feel the pressure now more than ever fearing just by lacking one of these qualities they will never have a career because the college of their dreams will not take them.

Because of this students load their schedules with unhealthy amounts of advanced courses and take on time consuming commitments to outside activities. This leaves no time for the little bumps along the way like getting sick or having a family emergency. Without these breaks, students prolong miserable situations fearing the risk of falling behind.

As a very type A personality, I will admit the reason students get so worked up over missing a day is because we are so controlling. Getting sick is like a tornado whisking away your perfect grade point average. You cannot do anything to prevent it despite how hard you have worked. It is very possible for just one day to cause a slip in a student’s grade given the fast pace environment of advanced placement classes and the International Baccalaureate program.

Now, I have fought this argument with my teachers, imaginarily, in my head so many times about the course load for these classes not allowing students to actually realize they have a life and should enjoy it but it always ends with the same words, “This is an AP class, you signed up for this.” I have to say I have to agree with my imaginary AP teacher because the workload only feels unreasonable when we get sick and have to take a step back to realize there has not been time for anything else in our lives but trying to get into college.

Between lectures, homework and tests almost every day it seems impossible to just miss one day or class period. That is why students opt to tucker through their illness rather than go to the doctor and get help. In the attempt to make up previous work students can fall even further behind trying to balance it with current work.

I have been sick for over a month now with a sinus infection. The only time I could go to a doctor was over Christmas break. Once school came back, I kept pushing off the going to the doctor’s and suddenly I realized it was too late; the upcoming Saturday I had the  Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). For me this meant four hours of nose sniffling in a completely quiet room taking the test of all tests staying awake by taking DayQuil as if it were coffee.

The only way to handle these kind of situations is to actually deal with it before it is too late. Missing school seems absolutely impossible to some of us, but showing up to school sick has a better chance of making your grades worse than missing a class period of lecture notes. Because just face it you are not going to be able to deal with being sick during a major test. It is quiet your nose is all sniffly and it feels like the whole entire class can hear it.

Sometimes you can get through a simple cold or virus by just waiting it out and taking over-the -counter meds as if your life depended on it. But once it goes over a week, all chance of making it out without breaking are nearly impossible. Fun fact, whether you are on painkillers or cold medication after a week of that stuff you will either want to throw up all the time or just not be all the way there.

No one is meant to live on DayQuil, so go to the doctor. As much as it feels like anything would be impossible to make up you just have to let that fear subside for one day rather than risk it hurting you later on. The one day of the year I finally quit and took a sick day after weeks of a cold, I had three tests the next day. I made them all up within the next days and I have to say there was no better day I could have missed.

I have come to realize during my junior year that daily grades have never affected my grade besides a point or two. So if you need to go to sleep because of a pounding headache and you only have time to study for a test and not a quiz, go ahead and go to sleep, although I would recommend above anything taking a sick day first. But if you insist on maintaining a perfect attendance record, go ahead put the homework down or bribe someone with a chocolate bar for the answers.

Finally deciding to miss a day is like a major sigh of relief. Once you have made up your mind all those worries about missing class go away and you can slip into sleep and finally just take care of yourself.