Every day for the last few weeks, I have seen someone sleeping in class.

The sleeper usually receives envious stares from other yawning students.

I must admit, I am one of those students giving the envious looks. I physically cannot fall asleep in class, and on those days when I am yawning every two minutes, I sometimes wish I could throw my worries aside and just take a nap on my desk.

Yet on those days where I’m keeping my yawning rate very low, the number of sleeping students is sometimes quite annoying. These students will wake up at the end of the class totally refreshed and will get away with not listening to the lecture by copying a friend’s notes. They have totally disrespected the effort other students make to keep their ears and eyes wide open for a whole class.

Some regular class sleepers also do reasonably well on tests. Why is it that some people who actually pay attention and put in effort get the same or worse grade as people who don’t?

I know that Uni students are supposed to care more about actually learning than just doing stuff for grades. But, in the classes that I find kind of boring, the only thing that keeps me paying attention is the motivation to get an A. What happens to that motivation when I see people who fall asleep for entire periods do just as well in the class?

While I am grateful to be in this Uni environment, it did not take me long to realize even as a subfreshman that while I’m surrounded by many smart people, many of them are actually very lazy.

So, what actually makes a smart person? Is it someone who works very hard in classes and does reasonably well? Or is it someone who does little to no work and still gets impressive grades?

Regardless of the answer, tomorrow morning I will still flirt with the idea of completely zoning out to make up for my missing hours of sleep.