Big Workload, Little Time?

Choose your battles; know when and which pawns to sacrifice in terms of grades, since you might not actually need an A+ on every assignment. In fact, regular attendance of all classes is not always necessary for a good grade or passing grade (I speak from experience); so it might actually pay to skip a class or two per quarter to get an extra hour of sleep if you're allowed to do this.

Eat while you study and study while you eat. Read while you're walking, read while you're on the toilet, read while you're on the train commuting or whatever. In other words, milk every last minute of your free time for all it's worth.

As for volunteer work, hopefully you can find a way to make this overlap with your studies. For example, if you had a volunteer job as a tutor, then who knows? Perhaps you'd end up with a lot of off-days where there weren't many students needing to be tutored (which means having a little extra time to study).

As for rest, entertainment and diversions, I would make a habit of spreading those out through each work day: do your socializing between classes, and just take an occasional 15-minute morale break to visit Y!A or to fire up a 1st-person-shooter game and start blowing off some steam in that way. Any other resting or sleep catch-up you can do either on a Saturday or Sunday, but not both.

Know your caffeine. Sodas contain caffeine which can keep your body awake, but they can also put you to sleep if your body develops a real tolerance for the stuff. Coffee is stronger, yet even coffee has its limits. Monsters and Rockstars are more powerful than Red Bulls, Amps, and Full Throttles. By the same token, there's no rule that says if you crack open a big 16 oz. can of those things you have to drink it all at once. Those are things to keep in mind, but also the fact that energy drinks are just that: energy drinks, and not necessarily stay-awake drinks, since they can make you sleepy (instead of causing an all-out crash) after your body develops a tolerance for them. (I also hear that B vitamins help in terms of energy; and sure enough, they are ingredients of some energy drinks.)

Yet even caffeine can be overrated, because power naps run the risk of going forgotten, underrated, or unappreciated. And if you rely on power naps and go caffeine-free, you won't ever need to buy sleeping pills to counteract the caffeine. (Your cardiovascular system will also thank you for not relying on caffeine.)

Finally, don't hang yourself if you don't graduate. Even after you graduate you'll still face trials in life; so you're better off strengthening your arms now to deal with lesser weights and battles later on. (Try to do like Marine Corp recruits in boot camp: sweat now so you don't bleed later, on the battlefield.) Besides, you might be surprised just how well life can turn out even after certain things go wrong and you don't quite get 100% of what you were striving for.