Every year, like clockwork, University Prep students lose sleep as time jumps forward one hour. Though this means that students can use daylight more effectively, many are not pleased with the short-term effects of daylight savings. 

Senior Diego Rubiralta felt the effects of the lost hour on Monday, March 13th. 

“I sleep very little as is, so losing an hour is just horrible,” Rubiralta said. 

Many students feel blindsided by daylight savings and have no time to prepare. 

“It’s just like, no one ever really remembers when it’s daylight savings time. It just happens, right?” Rubiralta said. “You can’t really plan around it because it’s just really sudden, and it comes up out of nowhere and messes with your sleep schedule for like a week.”

Senior Joshua Amador also had little warning that he would lose an hour of sleep. 

“I didn’t know that it was going to be daylight savings until like the day of,” said Amador. “That night as I was going to bed, it was like nine o’clock, and my mom was saying, ‘Make sure you guys go to bed early!’”

This shift also caused an increase in the number of tardies on Monday.

“We had maybe ten more kids than usual late on Monday morning,” Main Office Coordinator Letisia Chavez said. “They all said it was either they woke up late, or their alarm didn’t go off.”

Chavez also noticed a change in student behavior. 

“They all looked tired on Monday and just not with a smiley attitude like they usually are,” Chavez said. “So I could tell that it kind of did affect them to a certain point.”

Chavez also had a difficult start that morning. 

“I looked outside, and I was so confused as to why it was so dark, and I was thrown off by that, and that kind of got my day started really bad,” Chavez said. “I was more tired because I lost an hour of sleep, and it did affect me. Like, even today, I’m still feeling kind of like off this week.”

Many people don’t see the usefulness of daylight savings because of the inconveniences it causes.

“Why do we do it? Because some people don’t like to see the sun in the morning?” Rubiralta said. “There’s no real reason to do it. It doesn’t help anybody, and it’s just a lot more convenient to not have it.” 

Amador agrees and struggles to understand the point. 

“I don’t see its application in the overall world around me,” Amador said. “If nobody had told me it happened, I would not have noticed.”