What student hasn’t studied until dawn the day before an important exam? Didn’t curse himself for having procrastinated too much by putting on his third coffee of the night?
It is the apotheosis of the college experience.
During the end of term, students often find themselves forced to cut short their sleep to catch up on the mountain of exams to revise and assignments to submit. Sometimes until a sleepless night.
Are they insatiable perfectionists? Procrastinators beyond hope? Or students going about their business, but crumbling under an unrealistic load, running out of hours in a day?
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
The extended opening of the library was a request from the students.
To find out, we spent part of the night* at the University of Montreal’s Library of Letters and Human Sciences (BLSH), which is open 24 hours a day during the end-of-session exam period.
After dark, the seven-story building on the main campus becomes the natural habitat of strange caffeinated night owls perched above their laptops.
At the end of the semester, the library is a bit like our second home.
Lucas Marchais
It’s 10 p.m. The digital music student has had his head in his notebooks since late afternoon. He has to hand in an essay the next day, in addition to studying for his exams. A sleepless night in sight?
“It will depend on how I am progressing in my work, but generally, at the latest, I leave around 4:00-5:00 in the morning. It happened to me to spend the whole night, ”he replies.
At this already late hour, a few hundred students are crammed into the library, immersed in their textbooks. And it’s not a particularly busy evening, said BLSH director Maryna Beaulieu.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
During the exam period, the library offers a quiet space, conducive to intensive study sessions.
“When I arrive very early in the morning, I often meet students and it is obvious that they have spent the night here. In winter, we see them in slippers! she exclaims.
Since 2011, the Université de Montréal has been extending the opening hours of its largest library during the end of term, and more recently mid-term. It is not the only one to do so, McGill University and Concordia University are doing the same for their community.
The extended opening of the library was a request from the students, says Ms.me Beaulieu. During the exam period, it offers a quiet space, conducive to intensive study sessions.
“We also have students who need varied opening hours, for example parent students or working students,” she adds.
A monster energy required
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
Studying all night requires a certain level of preparation.
After midnight, experienced night owls can be identified by the number of empty coffee cups, Monster Energy cans and chargers of all kinds that litter their desks.
“During exams, your life cycle is reversed. You sleep during the day and you come back at night, ”says Stanislaw Pytelewski, black cap screwed on his head.
The day before, the film student stayed in the library until 6 a.m. And here he is preparing for a second consecutive all-nighter.
But isn’t that a bit unhealthy? As we know, performance anxiety is a problem among college students, and lack of sleep certainly doesn’t help…
No choice, drop the student. “Sometimes, in a week, you have four exams from four different courses,” he laments.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
Stanislaw Pytelewski, film student
You have plenty of students who are in burnout, who get depressed, who drop out of school. I think there may be a problem in our way of doing things.
Stanislaw Pytelewski, film student
Exactly, doesn’t opening libraries at night send the wrong message to students?
“We are aware of it. It is presented as a choice for those who have to fall back on it […] At the same time, I think the need is there,” replies Maryna Beaulieu, director of the BLSH.
Nobody is forcing them to sacrifice their sleep, stressed several students at The Press.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
Étienne Plouffe, architecture student
“We do it because we want to have a project of which we are proud and we know that we have given the maximum”, explains Étienne Plouffe, an architecture student.
A few kilometers from the library, around thirty architecture students are finalizing their projects in the workshops of the planning faculty pavilion.
Leaning over the model of a primary school, Jean-Simon Bissonnette is a regular at sleepless nights. “It’s hard on the body, but we’re all perfectionists and we want to give the best of ourselves,” he says.
See the sunrise
Back at the library, the energy begins to wane. Some students caught the last metro. But the most motivated did not move.
Why not study from the comfort of your home? “When you are here, it motivates you. You say to yourself, OK, I am not alone, ”replies Ghita Hilout, a mathematics and economics student.
PHOTO MARTIN CHAMBERLAND, THE PRESS
Ghita Hilout, mathematics and economics student
It will be his third sleepless night in a row. Surprisingly, she finds pleasure in these nocturnal adventures: the solidarity between the students, the satisfaction of living the university experience to the fullest…
When sleep overtakes her, she sometimes stretches out on a table or on one of the armchairs arranged for this purpose on the top floor until the spectacle of dawn.
“I like to see the sunrise! she exclaims.
* Overcome by fatigue, we left the library around 2:30 in the morning. At least three students we interviewed confirmed to us the next day that they stayed up until 6 a.m., or even later.