If you're reading this, you do not need to overwork yourself to be admired.
The transition to college brings a lot of pressure, and further, the transition to Georgia Tech even more. The high standards and pressures of the Institute are widely known. It can be very easy to find yourself quickly overwhelmed with balancing newly-found freedom and maintaining top marks in unfamiliar class settings. When I first started at Tech, I found myself, like many students, struggling with a work-life balance and with sleep deprivation in particular. Living alone was a particular challenge for me, as was getting to classes. Never before had I spent hours a day just feeding myself and commuting to do work. In addition, classes were more challenging than I expected, with a lot more material expected to be self-taught. After a rough start to my college career, I found myself becoming very interested in studying work-life balance and how students at Georgia Tech valued time. The culture of working until exhaustion is easily visible at Tech as constant stories of overworked students circulate.
Overworking is common, especially in the high-pressure atmosphere of Georgia Tech. It is very common to find oneself casually mentioning one's busy schedule or even being on the receiving end of hearing about one. Many may not understand the deeper impact of constantly hearing about each others’ schedules and busyness. Various explanations can be hypothesized, such as seeking sympathy or justification for lack of social integration; however, it may also be that we all do it for different reasons. We may subconsciously mention our overwork casually as a form of venting, although this venting hardly is productive as others respond with the busyness of their own lives. Overwork and time management have proven to be common strains on work-life balance, leading students to spread themselves thin in hopes of achievement maximization. But the toll this takes on the body is far greater than many think. Four years of neglect can lead to lifelong problems. So why do we do it? A prevalent reason that we spread ourselves thin could be because, well, everyone else is doing it. We want to be competitive and admirable to others, we want to stand out from the crowd in the job market and amongst our peers. This concept in particular is something that I have spent the recent year unraveling in the Mental Health and Well-Being Lab under Dr. Chris Martin. We focused specifically on the status between individuals with a significant investment of time and individuals with a wise investment of time.
Breaking down the research, we saw three common trends. The first two accord with the expectations of Georgia Tech students, but the third trend was surprising. First, we saw that students who work hard, such as by taking many credits hours and participating in many extracurriculars, are looked to by their peers and viewed as competitive candidates on the job market. Second, we found that students who didn't work as hard, taking fewer credit hours and doing fewer extracurricular activities, were not quite as admired as their peers, and similarly, they were seen as less competitive candidates for the job market. The third trend however was particularly interesting: once a student crosses the work-life balance threshold and sleep deprivation sets in, we see that these students, regardless of how many credit hours they take, are viewed as less admirable compared to their peers. The takeaway is that Tech students do not view sleep deprivation and overwork as favorably as you might think. Although there is a high-pressure environment at Georgia Tech, students do not find it desirable to overwork themselves to exhaustion. So where does this put us? For a simple conclusion, we can infer that we all want the best for one another and working hard is a good thing, but once burnout and overwork grip you, the effort is no longer so admirable. Knowing this information allowed me to feel less stressed about working myself to the bone; I knew it was okay to relax and take care of myself.
This research will by no means drastically shift the high-pressure environment of Georgia Tech, but it may allow the peace of mind that we are not in this alone. When you are stressed and push yourself to exhaustion, just remember that your peers admire your hard work, but do not expect you to work to the point of sleep deprivation. Tech students find it more desirable to have a balance in life, so spare your mental health and take a break, catch up on sleep, and approach it all with a better view. Our approach to mental health can have a drastic impact on our lives; we must remember that work-life balance is preferable to overwork and that burnout is not something your peers expect of you. Take time to take care of yourself, take up journaling to reflect on your actions, and remember that chronic overwork has bodily effects that could impact you the rest of your life.
Silas H., Georgia Tech ‘23
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