Project Pressures Free Essay Sample

There it is that, long awaited bell signifying the end of a lengthy and tiresome school day. You go and grab your stuff for track from your locker and then rush to practice. Once practice is over at 4:30, you meet your parents and then speed home to conquer all of your homework. Checking your assignment notebook, you realize you have homework in all your subjects.

A worksheet in math, chemistry and English, history notes, and Spanish verb practice; not to mention the quizzes and tests you have tomorrow. Once you finish all of these tasks you remember that you have projects due in two of your classes in a few days. You try to start them both, but you are too tired from the hectic day of school and sports. Projects are very hard to work on between the day to day stresses and demands of life. School projects are given out in basically every class one will take in school. Whether it is a poster or an essay, projects are assigned and expected to be done and handed in on time.

This can be very stressful for the average teenager. Most teens have many extracurricular activities. These can include school clubs, sports, or volunteering. Recently there has been much emphasis on the importance of volunteering and helping out in the community. The school wants many students to become leaders and take action in the community. All of these responsibilities can take up a lot of a student’s time and they have less time to work on projects.

Many people do a combination of all of community service and clubs; this can be very time consuming. Students then have to go home and do homework. For them to have to fit in an essay analyzing a character or a project on the Cold War can be very stressful. Group projects are also stressful when there is a group of four or five people working together. Most of the time, a group has to get together and work on the project for a few days. Sometimes this doesn’t work if some people in the group have a busy schedule.

Then, the project gets pushed off until the last minute and it has to be done sloppily with only one or two of the group members putting forth the effort, because the other members couldn’t fit the project into their crazy schedule. On Gostress.com, it is said that stress is a top health concern for students between 9th and 12th grade. Stress can lead to many issues including sleep deprivation and depression. Around 20% of teens will experience depression before they become an adult. A lot of this 20% will be caused from stress.

Yes, homework will play a big part in this, but projects add a major amount of stress. Projects have due dates. Most people will not go home that night and finish the project a week before it is due; they have other priorities. The due date then hangs over a student’s head and the stress builds and builds with every passing day that the due date gets closer. Within that time that this project is due, you might get one or two more projects that are due within the same week, or even on the same day.

Instead of only having one project to worry about, you now have two or maybe even three to work on. In most classes, projects count for more than homework or even quizzes and tests. This adds to the fact that you have to get a good grade on a project over a quiz to maintain a good average. To get a good grade you must work hard on the project and show you understood the material you will present. Projects should not be eliminated; instead they should just have less emphasis on them.

Usually when an honors student gets a project, they immediately stress out. To most students, good grades are key. When a project is assigned and it is worth 40% of your average, it can be overwhelming, especially when you have a dozen other things going on in life during that time. Tests and quizzes should be worth more in a class’s curriculum, these show what a student really knows. A project just expands upon ones knowledge of a topic.

Teachers should also understand that school is stressful enough with homework and tests. With a project added onto this it can become overwhelming, especially on the honors track. It would be helpful if teachers talked to one another about what they have due when. It is very difficult to get three projects done that are all due within two days of one another. If teachers talked to each other about the different projects that they have and when they are assigned, other teachers could try to make their projects due another time.

With this in place, a lot of stress would be eliminated from their students’ day. All if these solutions would lead to a work load that is manageable. Sometimes a student is up until one in the morning working on a few different projects. They are then tired in school and it is hard to focus. If they only had one project due, maybe they would have been able to get to bed at a more reasonable time. In conclusion, projects should have less stress and weight put on them.

Projects usually contribute to a lot of a student’s average. This stresses kids out a lot because most students want to do well and excel in school. Most of the time projects do not even have much relevance to the topic that is being studied. Taking a lot of time and effort to work on a project that will teach you little about the topic, is pointless. Quizzes and tests should have more prominence in a class because they actually review and go over what was being taught.

Students do not have a lot of time in a day. Between homework, sports, extracurricular activities and sleep, students rarely any time for homework and sometimes even sleep. For them to have to try and squeeze in the time to work on a project, it is virtually impossible.