This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Lehigh chapter.

Libraries are packed, students are highly caffeinated, your backpack has approximately three overpriced textbooks in it at any given time, and the sleep deprivation feels like it’s going to kill you; welcome to four o’clocks. The insurmountable stress, the overwhelming amount of work. It feels like all your professors are ganging up on you at once. It’s days like these that make you question if a college education is really worth it (it is) but just knowing that everyone around you is going through the same thing is almost comforting. Here are some of the stages we all go through when four o’clocks roll around.

Stage 1: The Pre-Game

You know four o’clocks are a week away so you have to get all your stress out before it begins. So you head out over the weekend with your closest friends

Stage 2: Lindy. FML. Lindy. FML.

So you had your few nights out, now it’s time to live in a library because those textbooks aren’t going to read themselves. May the study room availability be ever in your favor.

Stage 3: Get Caffeinated

We need all the coffee to make sure we can still be the last ones awake in the library at 3 in the morning

Stage 4: The Realization

The “Oh no, I’ve been in the library for 3 straight days now and I know absolutely nothing for this exam” realization.

Stage 5: Take a Study Break (a.k.a. Take a nap)

This “break” will probably end up lasting a few hours and totally ruin your productivity but resting your brain is good, right?

Stage 5: Admitting Defeat

It’s 2 AM, your exam is at 4 PM the same day, and you still feel like you are unprepared. At this point, you’re just gonna go to bed because the all nighter isn’t really worth it.

Stage 6: The Final Cram

The hour before your exam you pull out your notes, study guides, flashcards, and textbook as one final effort to cram whatever information you can into your brain.

Stage 7: Taking the Exam

This is it, time for all those hours spent in the stacks of Lindy and the cubes of FML to pay off, you got this.

Stage 8: Post exam

Walking out of the exam in one of two ways, either you totally nailed it or feel like you just got crushed, either way you’re gonna celebrate that it’s over.

Stage 9:

Chances are you have another exam coming up so time to repeat the whole process. Is it Lelaf week yet?

Stages of 4 o’Clocks