So, what have you been up to lately?
It’s a question that leads with nothing to say. However, the only acceptable answer would be classes, internships, club leadership and volunteer hours. The longer the list, the better. Being busy isn’t just a state of being in college. It’s a personality trait. Are you even trying if you aren’t exhausted?
More than half of all college students now experience some degree of academic burnout. The National College Health Assessment found that 80% of college healthcare students feel overwhelmed. Over 39% of high school students screened positive for moderate depression and 44% of college students reported that procrastination severely impacted their academic performance. These aren’t just numbers; they’re a portrait of a generation that has been told that their value is measured in output.
Hustle culture didn’t just seep into campus life; it was welcomed in, given a plaque and put on a brochure. Universities celebrate the student who does it all, seemingly to fill in as much as possible on a resume. Social media turns busyness into a performance by flooding feeds with “study with me” videos, morning routine vlogs and posts that frame excessive work hours as aspirational moments. How many times have you come across a post at 2 a.m. bragging about a procrastinated deadline? College students have built an identity around being stretched thin, and we stopped questioning whether that identity was actually serving us.
As someone who has experienced that kind of stress firsthand, I find it mentally exhausting. One day you’re celebrating all the new opportunities that come your way, and the next day you are slammed with demands and assignments that somehow have nothing to do with your grade or your future, yet you are sacrificing precious time and sleep for it. I still remember arriving home late at night from working on assignments and tasks all day and still having overdue work to finish up. What I thought would be fulfilling ended up being something I dreaded every day.
Four out of five college seniors report experiencing burnout during their undergraduate years, and another 80% say they’re worried about burnout once they begin their careers. It’s startling to realize that the expectation to stay busy is shared across different forms of work, whether it be education or employment. Burnout isn’t just an emotional state — it has measurable consequences that we tend to minimize and ignore entirely.
When stress becomes chronic, it can lead to anxiety, depression, physical discomfort and deteriorating sleep quality. On a physiological level, burnout disrupts sleep which triggers fatigue and reduces quality of life. Research consistently shows that burnout leads to sleep issues and increased physical exhaustion. A study done in China found that over 42% of college students sleep fewer than the 6 to 8 recommended hours. We have to sleep to regulate memory and make sure our body is properly recovered and ready for the day. We are skipping the maintenance our body desperately needs and calling it dedication.
So how do we fix this?
First, it helps to understand why we do it in the first place. For many students, overloading a schedule isn’t laziness in reverse, it’s fear moving forward. Fear of falling behind peers, fear of an unforgiving job market and fear that taking a breath means losing ground. We have been conditioned to believe that a packed calendar equals a promising future and college only amplifies that pressure. Add in the cost of tuition, student loan anxiety and the nagging sense that every semester needs to justify its price tag, and suddenly saying yes to everything feels less like ambition and more like survival.
Recognizing that cycle is the first step toward fixing it.
Start by leaving some space in your schedule. Not every hour needs a purpose, and not every week needs to look like a resume in progress. Before you say yes to the next club, committee or commitment, ask yourself honestly: do I actually want this, or do I just want to be able to say I did it?
The next time someone asks what you’ve been up to, try answering with something that has little to do with productivity.
There are so many smaller aspects of the UA that we tend to forget and many surprises that are yet to be discovered. For example, a few weeks ago I decided to stop by Jimmy’s Pita and Poke to see what the hype was about. I passed by it so many times on my way to the University Services building, and never thought of entering it until then. For the hefty price, it is actually delicious! It left me with enough to take home the next day too. And I did that by leaving some room in the schedule for me-time.
College is meant to be a place of exploration and learning. Leaving time for spontaneity, whether it is self-care, socializing or exploring a new place or new routine — these can make all the difference when it comes to managing endless stress. The version of yourself that does all of these activities is not a less productive student; you are sustainable.
We do not have to earn the right to enjoy our lives after we have checked every box. The busyness was never the point. You are.
