Preparation for Life in the Real World

That's what they say college is.
A time of practice, in a sense, so we don't go out into the world unprepared.
I don't believe it.
I do not believe that life in the real world entails quite this amount of insensitivity.

Perhaps, in reality, it does. But I personally need to believe that once I escape this practice stage of college, I will be free of deadlines that coincide with tests, that coincide with projects, that coincide with essays, that coincide with (take over, destroy, ruin the prospect of) life.
I need to believe that when I leave this place, I will leave behind me the days spent trying to accomplish more than can be done in a 24 hour span and the nights spent shedding useless tears and genuinely dreading waking up in the morning.
I have no illusions of "real life" being easy. I expect stress. I expect to be overwhelmed at times. I expect life to come at me full force with no hesitation and no regrets.
What I do not anticipate is having all of this attacking me from five different angles at once.
I do not expect to have to finish an art project whose date of completion has invariably been moved on the day of my math exam for which I am ill prepared while playing phone tag with contacts whose calls I only miss because I'm in class and whose input I must obtain before I can have any hope of making deadline.
I could be wrong.
All this and worse could very well await me outside of this institution. In which case, I honestly don't know what I'll do aside from taking part in some serious prayer.
For right now, though, for the sake of my own sanity and well-being and for the sake of those poor souls who have to put up with me on a daily basis, I am choosing to believe that this will not always be my life. That this "preparation for life in the real world" is not so much real world preparation as worst-case-scenario preparation.
I am choosing to believe that this, too, shall pass.