In an unfortunate but unsurprising turn of events earlier this Winter Quarter, a UCSD undergraduate found himself living many college students’ worst nightmare: accidentally sleeping through a week of classes. The first-year Computer Science major reportedly forgot to set the alarm on his phone before lying down for a short nap on Wednesday of Week four, and as a result ended up sleeping until around the same time the next Wednesday.

The freshman decided to take “a quick power nap” after having spent 36 consecutive hours working on a particularly lengthy coding assignment, fully intending to get up after 15 minutes and resume his studies. However, the ostensibly innocuous endeavor quickly became devastating when he forgot the crucial step of setting an alarm on his phone to wake him before slipping into what can only be described as an acute comatose state.

“I have no idea how I could have forgotten to turn my alarm on,” the distraught student later lamented. “I will admit I was feeling a tad sleepy after all the coding. I have a feeling that this mistake is really going to cost me.”

The student’s statement proved accurate, considering that after he was jolted back into consciousness by a sudden sense of panic very similar to the kind that many describe developing after unexpectedly becoming old enough to assume adult responsibilities, he was confronted with the unforgiving reality that he had missed two midterms, one mandatory discussion, and three lectures in which attendance was taken via iClicker.

In the aftermath of this incident many other students have expressed a growing sense of unease over the ever-present danger of oversleeping as a result of failing to set an alarm. “I never admitted it, but I always kind of believed it when they said ‘You snooze, you lose,’” confessed one haggard-looking second year, struggling not to spill the coffee in her shaking hand.

“After hearing about this, I know I’m not just being neurotic,” another commented. “I really don’t want to experience the same thing, but I can’t wake up even when I do set an alarm. And I just can’t help but suspect that my roommates are somehow talking about me whenever I overhear them planning an elaborate plot to murder someone in their sleep when I first wake up in the mornings.”

As for the first-year for whom this waking (or perhaps, non-waking) nightmare is a reality, the consequence is a severe blow to his GPA, an exacerbation of his general sense of disorientation, and quite possibly the necessity of remaining at UCSD for an extra school year in order to catch up on the week’s worth of material he missed.

Written by: Sarah Wernher