It’s 5 a.m. Drowsy from my 3 hour nap, I realize I still have to finish my homework. As I start to work, sunlight trickles in through the window. When I finally finish, I try to fall back asleep, desperate for a little more rest before another school day starts.

AP classes are hard. But despite the rigorous curricula, AP classes give too much work.

Too often I come home from a long day of school only to be swamped with homework. Even worse, half of the time I don’t even feel like the assignments help me learn the material.

On a good day, I spend 1-2 hours working on homework. On a bad day, it can blow up to 5 or 6 hours. I spend almost a second school day at home working on homework. On the weekends, which should be rest days from school, I spend at least 8 hours working.

When you add on extracurricular activities that can take up multiple hours a day, it can become unbearable for students. Club activities, hobbies outside of school and sports all take time that make it really difficult to keep up with the workload. This is bad for students’ health and encourages them to put their work ahead of their wellbeing.

As high school students, it is important to have a social life in order to stay connected with friends and family. Neglecting a social life causes feelings of loneliness that can really hurt teenagers mentally.

At a certain point, homework stops being helpful and starts to negatively affect students. There’s a clear difference between busy work and work that actually teaches. Fifty question assignments and constant repetitive math problems are busy work designed to take up students’ time. Studies show that too much work is detrimental to high school students’ mental health and bites into their sleep hours.

Supporters of homework claim that it helps with practice and teaches students how to apply what they learned. While this is true, there is a more efficient way that doesn’t come at the expense of the students. AP Calculus BC is a perfect example of this. Because it is two semesters of college material rather than one, Calculus BC has a much larger and more rigorous curriculum than most AP classes. There is never a break as almost everyday is a new topic. Despite this, I only have about 30 minutes of work each day from this class, and I am still able to grasp all the concepts. Other classes on the other hand give me 1-2 hours of work daily for topics that are much easier to understand.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t have any homework. I believe that homework helps me understand the material better, but there has to be some middle ground between the two. I shouldn’t have to constantly stay up past midnight during the week just to stay afloat.

In most AP classes, late work is only accepted for 70% of the credit. Even one late assignment can drop a grade from an A to a B. This policy encourages students to stay up late and finish their work no matter how late it is, rather than finishing a different day when they have available time.

Classes with more homework are also relaxed with their use of time in class. In Calculus, there isn’t a second wasted each class. Either we are learning something new, asking questions, or working on problems in groups. Any extra help needed can be provided during Cardinal Hour almost every day.

This is the perfect way to run a class. Spend the class time teaching and working on example problems, and allow students who need more help to come during lunch. This way there is minimal work after school, and students have the ability to get extra practice with the teacher if they need.

Giving hours of homework to students is unnecessary and just adds extra work to an already stressful time. Rather than assigning pointless practice problems, teachers should maximize their class time and make sure that their homework truly is helpful to teach the students.