The Perils of All-Nighters
Beth Carr on why we need to stop the habit of staying up all night to complete work
It’s 3am on a Wednesday night and campus is buzzing. But it’s not the SU that’s full: it’s the library. Not so much buzzing with activity but buzzing with caffeine. This is a picture of end of term deadline season and it’s worrying to think about.
A second year historian floats into her sixth consecutive all-nighter. An MA student spends 50 hours awake to complete an essay and falls asleep in the SU. Even first years don’t escape the lure of skipping sleep in order to complete work on time. Third years in the midst of dissertations keep the quietest about their essay writing habits, but with the increasing trend of squeezing work into the night before the due date, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of t...