EDITORIAL: Burnout, the unspoken and accepted consequence of college
Burnout is encroaching students at a sinister rate.
Assignments take precedence over health as introductory chapters have closed across the departments and exams, laboratory reports, essays and homework dominate the minds of students.
The mental toll of midterm and finals season is endemic on its own, but coupled with the persistent awareness of a global pandemic and mass social upheaval, the university workload has been compounded more than expected.
Symptoms of burnout can include irritability, lack of motivation to begin work, difficulty with concentration, sleep problems, and physical manifestations like headaches or digestive issues. Consequently, insomnia, fatigue, resorting to substance abuse, heightened blood pressure and weakened immune system can occur following an extended period of burnout.
A study conducted in 2020 found that half of college students (out of a control group of 33,000 students) reported suffering from depression influenced by numerous factors: COVID, systemic racism, political unrest, and social inequality.
83% of these students said that their mental health had inhibited their academic performance. An additional two-thirds of students are suffering from loneliness according to researcher Sarah Ketchen Lipson, a concern that was on the rise even before social distancing was implemented.
Extrinsic motivations are harming the social notions of success and fulfillment. There is more to life than a job, there is more to life than academics and students are worth more attention than grades.
Senior English major Lynnsey McAllister expressed that “taking six classes this semester in order to graduate has taken a serious toll on my mental health.” McAllister wrote that living with bipolar and lack of access to medication due to pricing has exacerbated her stress, and working six nights a week to pay the bills has been a constant stressor throughout the semester.
“Burnout has had a huge effect on the quality of my writing I produce for my classes,” she remarked. “I have the knowledge to produce more quality work, but my burnout won’t allow me most of the time.”
Austin Boafo, a communications major, said that burnout has detrimentally impacted his experience this semester and that professors don’t seem to respond to student lives outside of coursework.
Ian Murray, chemistry major, reported that burnout has made him “not want to pursue extra curricular activities I enjoy, let alone (do) school work.”
Copy Editor Jillian Hicks expressed her fears “that after two years, the people and this university will still feel unknown to (her).”
Empathy from professors, or lack thereof, seems to resonate with the student body. Hicks wrote that she has felt as if she has “had to beg for the slightest bit of human empathy when it comes to burnout,” even having to drop a class that offered minimal credit hours coupled with overdemanding weekly assignments.
“Just because I am an honor student doesn’t mean that I don’t also have to support myself financially,” she said. “It has been an internal tug-of-war between staying on track and keeping enough in my bank account not to go under. It feels impossible sometimes.”
Respectfully, students are suffering. As witnessed by strikes, protests and riots across the globe, systemic flaws are now being examined in a new and just light.
Now is the time to call out the absurd standards if we want to reform the education system. Now is the time to prioritize your education by putting yourself first.
Life is not fair, we know this, but suffering should not be — and never should have been — the exemplar in universities.
