“How College Students Sleep”
Somnia Somnia Zine Zine
Volume.1 By Huy Nguyen
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Somnia Zine College students and getting adequate sleep are not always associated with each other. Many college students struggle to balance work, classes, family time, friends, and romantic relationships which may contribute to a tenuous connection to their sleeping schedules. With Somnia Zine I aim to address this topic through interviews with real UT Dallas students to get a feel for how their sleeping habits are affecting their lives; as well as using projection photography with words and quotes pertaining to sleep from each student to capture their thoughts on being tired or stressed. My intent with the Somnia Zine is to spark thought and contemplation towards the reader’s own sleeping habits.
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N
ame:
Meron Aberra
Major:
Emerging Media & Communications
Graduating Year: 2019
Average hours of sleep:
Weekdays = 6-7, Weekends = 9
How would you describe your sleep schedule on weekdays vs weekends? Weekdays are more hectic and more of a variety in terms of bedtime, activities right before bed, energy levels, etc. which results in less sleep overall. I’m usually working on projects, assignments or trying to fit in socializing throughout the evening/night which keeps me up later than intended. Most weeknights I fall asleep past midnight (usually between 1:30 am to 3:30 am) and then I wake up almost everyday around 9:30. Weekends allow me to sleep in more but also as a result I do tend to go to bed even later (~ 2-4am).
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Does your academic schedule affect your sleep? It is one of the most crucial factors that affects my sleep and keeps me working for hours on end after my classes are over, and many times keeps me staying up later than intended.
What keeps you up at night? If not school work/assignments, then organizations and internship projects can also take up a lot of my night time as well as general stress/anxiety (from graduation, my future, job opportunities, social circles, life goals, etc) that makes it more hard to fall asleep quickly.
What do you do to relax or destress after the week? Making time for friends, socializing, traveling, going out (drinking, bars, clubbing) etc.
Do you think that your sleep is reflective of your life?
school/internship/social life it’s much easier and almost a given that I will lose sleep. An indirect relationship (higher stress = less sleep).
What do you dream about? It can vary, if I am having a full schedule: I can either knock out completely and not dream at all or have dreams related involving classrooms, running late to class, doing presentations, or just being in general vicinity of my school campus. If I’m not stressed, i can have more surreal/fantasy-oriented dreams that are out of touch with reality and can involve super-human powers, outlandish environments, adventurous journeys, etc almost like a movie or television series.
What can you do to improve your sleep? Pay better attention and improve my time management skills, stop stretching myself out thin within various aspects of my life like school, work, social life, family (self care).
Definitely, when my life is more hectic/stressful in terms of
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N
ame:
Jesus Javier Vela
Major:
ATEC (Design & Production)
Graduating Year: 2022
Average hours of sleep: 5.5 hours
How would you describe your sleep schedule on weekdays vs weekends? Weekdays: sleep before 4am and wake up between 8-9am. Weekends: sleep around 4am and wake up at 12pm
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Does your academic schedule affect your sleep? Yes. fridays I have no classes, so I sleep 8 hrs Thursday night.
Do you think that your sleep is reflective of your life? Yes.
What keeps you up at night?
What do you dream about?
A noisy mind considering ALL possibilities.
I dream about people and objects I encounter lately
What do you do to relax or destress after the week?
What can you do to improve your sleep?
Play Minecraft, eat out with friends or watch a movie at home.
Set up a time limit where I stop working on ANYTHING and call it a night.
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N
ame:
Sophie Lu
Major:
Emerging Media & Communications
Graduating Year: 2019
Average hours of sleep:
5-7 hours
How would you describe your sleep schedule on weekdays vs weekends? I usually get more sleep on the weekends (depending on the weekend) than I do on weekdays.
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Does your academic schedule affect your sleep? Yes. Depending on what I have to do (academically), I can get no sleep or 2-3 hours a night.
What keeps you up at night? A lot. I’m usually stressing about work, school, and the future (in terms of what I’m doing after graduation/work).
What do you do to relax or destress after the week?
Do you think that your sleep is reflective of your life? Yes, I can definitely tell when I haven’t gotten enough sleep. I’ll be less productive during the day in school and work.
What do you dream about? When I’m extremely exhausted, I usually will not dream. If I do have a dream, it can be really random.
What can you do to improve your sleep?
I’ll either talk to a friend or listen to music while doing some sort of self-care (getting my nails done, face masks, etc).
Manage my time better, stay off my phone, and take something off my plate (currently I have 2 jobs and i’m taking 12 hours).
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N
ame:
Anna Phengsakmueang
Major:
ATEC (Design & Production)
Graduating Year: 2023
Average hours of sleep: 6 hours
How would you describe your sleep schedule on weekdays vs weekends? Sleeping before 3AM most nights and waking up at 8:30 AM on weekdays, while waking up at 11 AM on weekends
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Does your academic schedule affect your sleep? Yes, because fridays and weekends I have no classes, but on the days I do have classes they usually start at 10AM.
What keeps you up at night? Schoolwork, projects, and occasionally friends keep me up at night. Sometimes my roommates tend to also be loud around the time I’m trying to sleep so they would often keep me up to a certain time.
What do you do to relax or destress after the week? To de stress, I would hang out with friends, clean my room a bit, do a few small hobbies, and sing to whatever I feel like singing.
Do you think that your sleep is reflective of your life? Yes.
What do you dream about? On a rare occasion, I dream about the future, as in dream of what will happen to me on that day or in the near future. These dreams tend to come true as well. Other times, when I am really tired, I don’t dream at all.
What can you do to improve your sleep? I can manage my time more to not have to work late at night. I can also force myself to actually try to avoid the chances of sleeping later by sticking to time limits rather than going with the flow. I can also try to speak with my roommates about how loud they are.
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N
ame:
Charlie White
Major:
ATEC and Visual Design
Graduating Year: 2019
Average hours of sleep: 6 hours
How would you describe your sleep schedule on weekdays vs weekends? Wed - Sat = 6 hours Sun-Tue = 8 hours
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Does your academic schedule affect your sleep? I work at night so I get on average 6 hours of sleep on work nights. Every Friday I have a 10am class and have work 6pm-6am the day before. I only get 3 hours of sleep on Fridays.
What keeps you up at night? Games and Netflix
Do you think that your sleep is reflective of your life? Yes, I’m a heavy sleeper. I love sleeping so I sleep every long.
What do you dream about? I don’t remember my dreams. They are different every night. I did dream about giants chasing me once.
What can you do to improve your sleep?
What do you do to relax or destress after the week? I play games, sleep and go out hiking/walking if the weather is nice.
Have a favorable schedule away from night shift work.
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N
ame:
Deion Nguyen
Major:
Mechanical Engineer
Graduating Year: 2020
Average hours of sleep: 6-8 hours
How would you describe your sleep schedule on weekdays vs weekends? I get more sleep on weekends than weekdays.
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Does your academic schedule affect your sleep? Yes since on Monday and Wednesday, I have sleep early due to being a 8:30 class.
What keeps you up at night? Watching YouTube videos knowing that I actually need sleep
What do you do to relax or destress after the week? Talking to people I trust and praying to God about my stress.
Do you think that your sleep is reflective of your life? Yes. I get full amount of sleep, so I get a lot of energy and feel fully rested.
What do you dream about? Sometimes random stuff. Other times nothing at all.
What can you do to improve your sleep? Get off my phone!
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N
ame:
Madison Larmeu
Major:
ATEC (Design & Production)
Graduating Year: 2021
Average hours of sleep:
Can vary from 3-11 hours during School year roughly 3-7 average How would you describe your sleep schedule on weekdays vs weekends? Weekday tend to be 3-7 hours Weekends tend to 5-11 hours
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Does your academic schedule affect your sleep? Yes absolutely.
What keeps you up at night? Homework 99% of the time project based.
Do you think that your sleep is reflective of your life? I believe it impacts my life significantly, absolutely.
What do you dream about?
What do you do to relax or destress after the week?
My Puppy, real people in odd scenarios, boyfriend, and if I have the tv on it’ll influence my dreams.
Play with my puppy, sleep, watch Netflix.
What can you do to improve your sleep? Structure my schedule better, Reduce my work load.
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N
ame:
Darrell Keller
Major: ATEC
Graduating Year: 2019
Average hours of sleep: 5-9 hours
How would you describe your sleep schedule on weekdays vs weekends? I sleep like a brick when I have nothing to do. Sometimes I just stay in bed just because I know I can sleep more after I just woke up, but then my whole day is mega short and I get mad at myself.
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Does your academic schedule affect your sleep? Haha. Of course it does. Projects can keep me up all night, luckily for me I get a ton of work done at night.
Do you think that your sleep is reflective of your life? No, I rarely dream. But if I don’t sleep I get weirder and edgier.
What keeps you up at night?
What do you dream about?
My projects mostly and things I know I need to finish. Sometimes I’m thinking about my personal relationships.
Unrealistic settings with real people.
What do you do to relax or destress after the week?
What can you do to improve your sleep? Put less on your plate. It works wonders. If you can.
Video games, driving, hangouts, breaking things and laying on my carpet.
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N
ame:
Katy Chen
Major:
Emerging Media & Communications
Graduating Year: 2018 (Alumni)
Average hours of sleep: 6-7 hours
How would you describe your sleep schedule on weekdays vs weekends? Last semester: Irregular. I would sleep around 3am including several all nighters toward the end. Weekdays I would wake up earlier to go to school and weekends I can sleep in til 1030-11am. After grad: I aim to sleep by 2am but sometimes doesn’t work. I would wake up around 930am but won’t leave the bed for hours.
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Does your academic schedule affect your sleep? The scheduling is fine, it’s the workload that really did me in.
What keeps you up at night?
Do you think that your sleep is reflective of your life? Yes, it affects people around me as well. It affects their sleep.
Stress. How my life is derailing.
What do you dream about?
What do you do to relax or destress after the week?
Mostly action, fantasy dreams. Sometimes people dying.
Draw, sketch, play video games (just started last week).
What can you do to improve your sleep? Sleep earlier, wake up earlier, having a regular sleep schedule.
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N
ame:
Hailee Milligan
Major:
Emerging Media & Communications
Graduating Year: 2018 (Alumni)
Average hours of sleep: 5-6 hours
How would you describe your sleep schedule on weekdays vs weekends? Weekdays my sleep schedule is much more regulated. It’s usually bedtime at 12 wake up at 6. On weekends it really just depends on whatever I’m doing. I always sleep in on weekends though.
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Does your academic schedule affect your sleep? When I was in school it absolutely did.
Do you think that your sleep is reflective of your life? Yes.
What keeps you up at night?
What do you dream about?
Anxiety, spooky noises in my apartment, my crazy cat, and candy crush.
I usually have really bad nightmares honestly. My dreams are all very strange.
What do you do to relax or destress after the week?
What can you do to improve your sleep?
I usually go out with friends. Concerts are my favorite way to de-stress.
Go to sleep earlier instead of staying up all night on YouTube.
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About Artist: Hi, I am Huy Nguyen. I am Currently based in Dallas, Texas as a Senior Emerging Media and Communications Major at The University of Texas at Dallas with a focus on graphic design. I am also the Communications Director of AIGA UT Dallas Student Group for Design where I create and manage promotional content for social media. As a graduating student, I want this project to reflect the skills I have learned in graphic design, photography, and research; as well as my love for color and light. As I continue on my path as a designer, I strive to create work that can engage the eye and the mind critically. Instagram: @huyqnguyen.design Website: www.huyqnguyen.design
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