MANY of the students at Granger High School are currently facing academic burnout.

“I think it’s just like the pres- sure of always being expected to achieve certain grades, and that burns me out; trying to make sure that I have everything that others expect of me,” Anna Olascoaga (11) said. Olascoga says that she feels the most burned out when she has many important deadlines that are very close together. She says that when she has an over- load of work that all needs to be done at once, it makes her feel overwhelmed.

Olascoga mentioned that be- ing burned out really impacts her social life. “Sometimes being burned out makes me less bubbly at events,” Olascoaga said.

“Once the quarter ends, I take a week to just take it easy,” Olascoaga said. She says that she takes time for herself to recover and return to her normal routine.

Ms. Cosgrove says that she has noticed a pattern with students becoming burned out. “Second quarter is always known as being ‘the big struggle,’ where we’re trying to get kids to turn things in and come back to school.” Cos- grove says that in general, burn- out tends to happen around the time each quarter ends.

Cosgrove also mentioned that the end of the quarter is intense and stressful for teachers. “The end of the quarter is the time when students who have been procrastinating all quarter realize their grades are about to be finalized.” she said.

Cosgrove says that when students wait until the very last minute to do their assignments, it causes students to be in a situation where they’re doing twenty assignments in one night as op- posed to two assignments per week.

Cosgrove says that she continues to come across burnout in her present life. “Honestly I’ve been hardcore meditating for like two months, and meditating twice a day has been so beneficial.” Cos- grove recommends practicing self-care and emotional wellness to avoid academic burnout. She has even compiled a list of vary- ing free resources that she recommends for de-stressing.

“I’ve literally dealt with school for all of my life,” Marwa Aslami (11) said. She says that the routine of going to school and repeating the same day over again has been a major cause of burnout for her. She says that the repetition of doing the same thing consistently for as long as she can remember has caused her to lose motivation. Aslami also com- plains about how early school starts. “The fact that we have to wake up at six in the morning to get to school is draining.” She also says she’s expected to go to college after high school and it makes her feel stressed.

Aslami says that all this pressure piled on can significantly affect a student’s personal and social life. “It sucks because sometimes I’m canceling all of my plans because I’m feeling so much stress that I don’t even want to be around my friends.” Aslami says that her best piece of advice for other students in the same situation, is to take it slow and focus on self-care.

It seems that students and teachers deal with school burnout is by spending time working on self-care.