When a person needs answers, what better place to turn than Wikipedia? The site does not receive the credit it deserves.
Despite professors who do not allow it as a source for papers, Wikipedia has statistically the same number of errors as your trusty (and dusty) encyclopedia. The real issue that teachers have with Wikipedia, as I see it, is that it makes research too easy. They want you to struggle. They want you to sift through endless books, magazines and journals — even though the research you find probably will not be as comprehensive as the information which Wikipedia provides.
We are expected to be able to do a million things a day — jobs, class, homework, extracurriculars, a social life, showering, etc. But then we are deprived of quality convenient resources make keeping up a little bit easier, like Wikipedia.
This is especially a problem since college students today have extremely over-scheduled lives that completely wipe us out.
I have mentioned before how we, as students, are generally sleep-deprived zombies. We stumble around groaning, ripping off each other's limbs and eating each other's brains because we get so darn cranky — and probably because brains are a heck of a lot better then some of the food at the Memorial Union.
Truthfully, the living dead is a pretty accurate description for me when I have become a stranger to my own bed because of work and school. When I speak, it is garbled and incoherent, my eyes roll around in their sockets, and I look frightening enough to make people scream and beg for their life. I also develop a peculiar affinity for human brains. Needless to say, it is crucial that I get a full night's sleep.
Sometimes I worry that there is something wrong with me when I cannot go days at a time without sleep, like others do. If I go more than three days on six or less hours of sleep each night, I will literally fall asleep anywhere — on the sidewalk, in the bathroom — you name it. But, the real freaks are the people who suck down caffeine like water and keep running 24/7, even if they are much more productive.
The average person needs eight to 10 hours of sleep per night, yet during crunch time, most of us spend twice that amount of time per day staring at a computer screen and stapling together research papers. I again blame our thinly stretched status on the busy-work classes that we are forced to take, which delay our graduation and steal more money out of our pockets, making it necessary to get a job while still in school. Since the revolution against college student abuse is yet to come, we must pay the price in lost sleep and leisure time.
Sleep deprivation is actually a torture device used in interrogation, and if experienced for prolonged periods of time, will cause death. Wikipedia kindly provides a long alphabetized list of the effects a lack of sleep can have on a person. Here is a small sample of that list: depression, diabetes, hallucination, memory loss, nausea, obesity and psychosis. Wa-hoo! Doesn't that sound like a party?
I am jealous of the rare breed of people who need little sleep and seem to accomplish 10 times as much as the average person. These people are designed to succeed. No schedule, no matter how packed, intimidates them. If they cross my path when I am in zombie mode, I will eat their brains out of bitterness.
Then there are the super-motivated folks who juggle a million and one things in a day (without ever complaining, like me) and still make time for the people around them.
You know, like those people who participated in the Ironman on Sunday. They are my heroes — a 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike, and 26.2-mile run in one day?
Nobody has to put forth such colossal effort and go after those great feats, yet they choose to do it anyway, even if it means putting their well-being on the line. I can only hope to someday be able to do half that.
Naturally, though, I would brag about it endlessly and whine about every bump on the bike path.
I accept your complaints at: melissa.mapes@asu.edu.
