Mid-Semester Reflection: The Academic Struggle is Real

 

Ah, Spring 2025. A time of renewal, of blooming flowers, of allergies—and of me slowly losing my sanity as I juggle genetics, botany, physics, and statistics like some kind of overworked circus act. Let’s talk about how the first half of this semester has been going, shall we?

GENETICS & THE LAB THAT OWNS MY SOUL

First of all, whoever decided that understanding DNA was a necessary part of life needs to be personally escorted out of the chat. Genetics is basically just "Biology: But Make It Math," and I did not sign up for that nonsense. My brain has been doing Olympic-level gymnastics trying to keep up with Punnett squares, gene mapping, and why some people have attached earlobes—meanwhile, I’m over here just trying to attach myself to a stable sleep schedule.

And don’t even get me started on lecture. Sitting in that class at 10:30 AM every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday is like experiencing time in slow motion. I swear, I sit down, blink once, and suddenly the professor is talking about epistasis while my brain is somewhere else entirely. Nothing sticks. In one ear, out the other. I might as well just bring a sign that says "Mentally Clocked Out."

Now, let’s discuss Genetics Lab, the true villain of my week. The lab is either a quick 20-minute breeze or an eternal three-hour struggle session, and there is no in-between. The room constantly smells like warm, rotten fruit, which is solovely when you’re already sleep-deprived and trying not to gag over an agar plate. And speaking of agar plates—let’s talk about PCR. More like Please Cry Repeatedly, because that’s all I’ve been doing when my results don’t turn out right. There’s always that one person in the lab who somehow gets perfect results on the first try, and at this point, I’m convinced they’re either a time traveler or in direct contact with Mendel’s ghost.

Honestly, if I make it out of this class with my sanity intact, it’ll be a miracle.

HOW I LEARNED TO RESENT PLANTS

Plants? Oh, you mean the little green things I used to completely ignore before this class forced me to care about their xylem, phloem, and absurdly specific light absorption wavelengths? Yeah. Turns out, botany is WAY harder than just watering your succulents and hoping for the best. My brain is now stuffed with more Latin than a Hogwarts spell book, and for what? So I can spend two days a week pretending to care about the inner workings of a leaf?

Let’s be real—class is boring. I show up, I sit there, and my soul slowly leaves my body while the professor excitedly lectures about photosynthesis for the fiftieth time. I do not care about plants like that. I respect them, sure, but do I need to know their vascular tissue structure in excruciating detail? No. No, I do not.

And don’t even get me started on Introductory Botany Lab. It’s three hours of poking at plant slides and pretending I see the difference between different kinds of tissue structures. If I had a dollar for every time I faked understanding what was happening under the microscope, I’d have enough money to drop out and buy a beach house. Why are these labs so LONG? Like, okay, I get it, plants are complex, but do I need to spend an eternity staring at them? And don’t even mention the materials—there’s so much to keep track of, my head physically hurts just thinking about it.

Botany might be fascinating to some people, but I? I am not one of those people.

ELEMENTARY STATISTICS AKA MY NEVER-ENDING NIGHTMARE

Listen, I knew I’d have to take a math class at some point, but did it really have to be this one? And did it really have to be an 8-week online course that runs through spring break?! Excuse me, who authorized this? Because I’d like to have a word. I did not sign up for my vacation to be rudely interrupted by a synchronous (aka “log in at the same time and suffer together”) statistics class. I was planning on spending spring break binge-watching trash TV, not watching my GPA fight for its life in a Zoom call.

And let’s talk about the timing. By the time 6:30 PM rolls around, I am already mentally checked out for the day—especially after surviving Genetics Lab. Like, I’ve already spent my afternoon crying over PCR results, and now I have to log in and pretend to understand probability distributions? Be so for real.

To make matters worse, this class is fast-tracked, meaning I have to learn twice as much in half the time. That’s like ordering a large pizza and the delivery guy handing you a single breadstick and saying, “Good luck.” The numbers, the probability, the graphs—it’s all coming at me at warp speed. I’m drowning in formulas, and the only statistical probability I care about is the likelihood of me surviving this class.

And let’s not forget the homework load. I’m currently juggling 16-20 assignments per week across all my classes, and 65% of them are from stats alone. EYEROLL. At this point, I’m doing so much math I might as well start calculating how fast I can drop out and become a goat herder in the mountains. I should’ve picked a different class—maybe something relaxing, like Intro to Watching Paint Dry.

PHYSICS II: THE SEQUEL NO ONE ASKED FOR

Who let physics into my life sciences degree? Who thought this was a good idea? Because I’d like to have a word. No—a strongly worded email.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I actually like physics. Physics I last semester? A breeze. Simple, straightforward, made sense. But this semester? Oh no, absolutely not. Nothing is clicking. The right-hand rule? BS. I don’t care which way my thumb is pointing; all I know is that my sanity is in free fall.

Physics for Life Sciences II is basically the academic version of forcing a cat to take a bath—painful, confusing, and ending in existential dread. Force, motion, and energy sound cool in theory, but the moment I have to calculate the trajectory of a ball rolling down a ramp? My brain does a hard reset. And Physics Lab? Oh, you mean three hours of me pretending to follow the lab manual while secretly hoping my group members are smarter than me? (Spoiler: we’re all struggling.)

I just want one equation that makes sense. One. But instead, I get RC circuits, resistors, torques, and the crushing weight of my own academic despair.