I think one of the most painful sensations is the feeling that you get when you force yourself to stay awake.

I would know; I experience this sensation during school almost every day. While falling asleep in class is nothing uncommon at Uni, it’s a phenomenon with significant consequences.

When I fall asleep in class, I miss out on the whole learning experience. I don’t get any notes down and I don’t absorb any information. Once I get home, I’ll just stare blankly at my homework, realizing that I don’t have the slightest clue where to start.

Then I spend time trying to relearn the information taught in class outside of school, which leaves me less time to sleep, which causes me to fall asleep in class again the next day, and so on. It all comes together in a nightmarish feedback cycle.

Also, many teachers at Uni don’t bother waking up students who are asleep in their class; they simply deduct class participation points. Therefore when I fall asleep in class, my grade also plummets.

I’ve tried drinking coffee, chugging Mountain Dew, and chewing nasty-tasting caffeinated gum. I’ve even tried carrying a spray bottle to class to splash my face with cold water every time I felt like dozing off. It worked for a few days, but then I became immune to the water.

Often, I’ll ask whoever is sitting by me to punch me or kick me if I doze off. That sometimes works, but other times I just become irritated at that person, or that person falls asleep himself. So basically, I have yet to find a fool-proof way to keep myself awake during class.

The obvious solution is to get more sleep, but that’s not very practical. In addition to school work, which includes long papers and ridiculously hard calculus exams, my schedule is loaded with sports, violin lessons, orchestra rehearsals, work, and volunteer activities.

I’ve found that with each new school year, I lose on average one hour of sleep per night compared to the year before. Right now, I’m averaging five hours.

I’m afraid to think about next year.

So until someone comes up with an ingenious way for students to stay awake in class, I would just like to say to teachers that we students don’t mean any disrespect when we fall asleep in your class. Most of the time, we don’t fall asleep because we think your class is boring; we fall asleep simply because we’re just too tired.

In the meantime, teachers can prevent students from falling asleep in class by assigning active projects, such as labs or group activities. It also helps to allow students to sit in groups, facing each other.

Or an even better idea: Teachers could try assigning less homework. It would be a win-win situation: Students would actually have time to sleep, and teachers would get a class full of energetic, attentive pupils.