Finals affect on conserving

Finals week comes not just once…but twice a year. Its a time when students run on little to no sleep, little to no nutritious foods, and a lot of caffeine. I know that I am no exception. With this semester’s finals week about half over, I have already found myself lacking in life skills due to the irregularity of my studying habits. So what does this have to do with energy conservation? I’ll tell you.

In all honesty, conserving energy is mostly about paying attention to little details of your actions, deciding if they are wasteful or not and if they are, working on changing those habits. But with lack of sleep, my attention span is very short, reducing the attention I can dedicate to my actions and I know I am not alone. I started thinking about the affect of finals week and how it may increase the amount of energy wasted on campus and here are a few examples:

-Lack of sleep, loss of attention. Last night while I was brushing my teeth I became preoccupied with straightening up my bathroom not realizing that I had left the water running, which is an obvious do-not of a conserver like me. But if multiple students do the same thing I did, it could result in hundreds of gallons of wasted water!

-All Nighters. The dedicated student who pulls an all nighter uses a lot of electricity. Most likely needing a computer to do work, a room light and desk light on. With all the students who pull all nighters on this campus, that’s a lot of extra energy use.

-24 Hour everything. The library is open 24 hours. Computer labs are open 24 hours. Starbucks is open 24 hours. The buses run later. All these things are obviously great resources to students but they are huge extra energy uses.

I’m not suggesting a change of behavior from students or the university. Resources being open, staying up late and doing whatever you need to do to get the grade are totally necessary during finals week. But when I started to think about it, it was surprising how much extra we all use in just this one week.