One of things I have enjoyed most about my second year of being a student-athlete on the women's basketball team is the looming threat of study hall. After my first year, my academic coordinator deemed my GPA high enough to be exempt from mandatory study hall.
Study hall is several things at once: a place where we can bond with our academic coordinator, Mrs. Fitz, a room filled with computers where papers are dashed out post-practice, but most important, for students like myself who are no longer required to be in the McCue Center four days a week, a recurring nightmare of an oozing green slime monster rattling off homework assignments that are days overdue.
Mrs. Fitz told my teammates and I this fall that if our GPAs did not improve this year, all 14 of us would return to study hall the next year. On the first day of class, when all of my notebooks were brand new and color-coordinated, this threat seemed far off and unlikely. Unfortunately, as the semester continued, these notebooks became portfolios for my doodles rather than collections of notes and neat outlines.
The study hall nightmares began shortly after. I would be trapped in a windowless room with nothing but my pink planner and glaring reminders of all the schoolwork I had to catch up on. I would leave my house at 8 a.m. for class, go to practice, then study hall and not make it home until I had put in my required two hours, sometime around midnight. These nightmares were far too reminiscent of my first year and were something I desperately wanted to avoid. I had begun to enjoy the freedom of coming home before I yawned so hard my jaw hurt every night.
So I began to buckle down. I found myself in my room immediately after dinner, door shut, TV off, books spread across my bed and floor like I actually knew what the pages they were opened to were talking about.
Spending hours with my lap desk left me feeling a bit lonely, as my roommates tramped by my door to dinners with friends and movies with each other. As the weeks progressed, they stopped inviting me to come out with them. Although I felt better about my grades, something else was missing. Human interaction, perhaps? Couldn't be that. I should probably just eat more vegetables. I wondered how people with 4.0s balanced social lives and classes.
During this panic period of studiousness, I wrote a paper in four hours, which may have been more time than I had ever spent on a paper before. The day we got our grades back, I stuffed the paper in my backpack and blocked it out of my mind. You know, the usual procedure when the teacher hands you back assignments you don't feel wonderful about. Oh, that's just me?
Anyway, I returned to my house that evening to find it empty. I prepared to settle in for another night of studying when I realized it was a Friday and all my teammates had gone to the movies without me. I vaguely remembered their discussion in the locker room 20 minutes earlier. Still, I dismantled my backpack and arranged the textbooks in a semicircle with my laptop in the center. I attempted to do some reading and found myself unable to concentrate. I dug in my backpack for a pen and came up with my paper from earlier that day. With raised eyebrows, I noticed the tiny red A on the front. This was a surprise. This was my first A on a college paper since, well, I started college. All it had taken was several days of making myself a hermit.
And I had to say, I didn't quite feel the relief I had hoped for. I wanted to be at the movies with my friends. Study hall or not, I was tired of looking at my walls. Maybe I won't have a 4.0, but I will not spend my nights staring at the crack making its way from behind my refrigerator to the ceiling. The study hall panic taught me that As, for me, are overrated. If I have to lose friends to get a tiny letter on a paper, I will accept a different letter, as long as it isn't a failing one. In the end, college is more about who you meet. Don't tell the 4.0 kids. But if I am going to be in study hall, at least I'll be in it with my best friends.
Simone's column runs biweekly Thursdays. She can be reached at s.egwu@cavalierdaily.com.
Read More
Queer Student Union showcases strength and spreads love
By Rosie Strickland | 6 hours agoThis summer, QSU members say that the organization’s efforts to support the University’s Queer community extend far beyond the 30 days of June.
‘Don’t get too comfortable’: Words of wisdom for the incoming class
By Kate Johnson | 3 days agoThese fourth-year students offer their reflections on their first year at the University.
Navigating the University from near and far
By Amanda Chung , Mai Hukuoka and Dana Douglas | 5 days agoAs the 2025-26 school year inches closer, three Life writers came together to discuss their different perspectives as in-state and out-of-state students.
