STEM majors at Carleton University are being subject to an arbitrarily high workload during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many students are suffering both physical and mental health problems as a result of the increased workload. Students who have families to support and/or work part time are under a particularly high amount of unneeded stress. The university needs to:

1. Directly address the problem by requesting STEM profs cut back to a normal workload (less assignments and quizzes).

2. Improve communication between profs, students and TAs. Students waste lots of time asking clarifying questions about poorly prepared assignments. Under normal circumstances it's normal to give vague questions since you can just ask your TA during the lab/tutorial times, but online it's difficult to stay in touch with the TA or prof to get a quick answer.

3. Be more accommodating with deadlines (allow extensions). In the middle of a global pandemic, stress levels and workloads are unreasonably high. The amount of time in the day hasn't increased and the amount of stress students experienced has gone up, so it is unreasonable for deadlines to be as stringent as they are.