We are supposed to get 9 hours of sleep each night.  At the time, this statistic startled me, and after the presentation, caused me to reflect on my time at Cornell.  Getting even 8 hours of sleep is a rare occurrence, especially among engineering and science majors. Moreover, Cornell encourages its students to become involved in campus activities and special interests.  As a result, even if a student could manage to get 9 hours of sleep each night if they only took classes at Cornell, they would lose the opportunity to become involved in student organizations and never partake in a quintessential aspect of Cornell.  However, we are told that in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle, we should have 9 hours of sleep.  The juxtaposition of being involved and getting adequate sleep/maintain a healthy level of stress manifests the struggle that Cornell students face everyday.  Should we stay up all night to finish a problem set or simply go to sleep and not satisfactorily complete our work?  When should we become involved in extracurricular activities since most inevitably result in additional stress and detract from our academic focus?  Is it this stress, academic rigor, and balancing a social life/extracurricular activities that make Cornell graduates so desirable to employers and institutions of higher education?  Does the high level of stress that we welcome and choose make us better at time management and stronger, more resilient individuals?  I don’t yet know the answers to these questions, but I feel like I’m becoming a more confident and capable individual by pushing myself to my limits and then succeeding – even this success goes hand in hand with incredible stress and sleeping 40 hours a week.