A room full of panicked students. This is the yearbook room on deadline day. Weeks of photo request forms, texts for quotes, stress over who’s been covered. Weeks of hard work and time management, and you’re still left with missing quotes and pictures on the day when it’s supposed to be handed to your staff editor. Sound like a stressful situation? That would be an understatement.

Staffers are given the nearly impossible task of getting hundreds of pages of the yearbook completed. Handed a spread with nothing on it, staffers then plan their next two-four weeks with the insane task of getting that spread completed to the expectations of their staff editor, senior editor, editor in chief and Perkins. As if this doesn’t already sound like a horrifyingly stressful experience, you also must add in the “ that person’s already been covered” and the “oh, I actually didn’t get that picture you asked me to get for you” situations. And don’t forget all the texts for quotes that are sent but never get responses.

Students have to do things they’ve never done before and must manage their time better than ever. However, it teaches students life lessons that they don’t learn in other classes.

“The biggest challenge is probably getting things done on time. Some people don’t give good quotes, sometimes photographers can’t take photos for you, and it’s hard to work on yearbook when you have other classes as well,” freshman Allie Anthony said. “Yearbook has taught me how to use my time management skills in a more efficient way. It’s also taught me to communicate with people in an effective way.”

Every staffer can tell you the problems that they have faced. Most would agree that getting pictures and having students text you back are probably the biggest obstacles of getting a spread done. However, there are other challenges that staffers face as they tirelessly work to get spreads done.

“The hardest part about meeting deadlines is that sometimes people won’t text back or give you a long enough quote so you have to constantly go back to them. Another hard part is getting pictures because it’s a lot of time outside of school. Also, I really struggled with my body copy because I’ve never written like a journalist,” freshman Jetlyn Toledo said.

Yearbook is a stressful environment full of deadlines and high expectations. Most people will cry at least once during the course of the class, and one student even dropped out of yearbook in the first week of school. However, yearbook teaches you good communication and time management skills. It teaches you how to focus and problem solve. It’s also a really fun and exciting class where at the end of the year you get an end product that you can be proud of.