As the feminine expectation of staying busy and filling up a schedule of productivity intensifies with the rise of hustle culture, its reach beyond academia stretches into socialization deficits and other aspects.
Caroline Smith,
Staff Writer
Hustle culture is the path often encountered by women who feel they must constantly be productive in order to exceed expectations that males have established in the academic and professional world.
Most people don’t understand the effects that hustle culture has on women in college, often driving them to push their own boundaries.
When I graduated high school a year early, I was at a crossroads with an academic dilemma that opened that opportunity for me. I felt like I had to make up for being a junior that graduated with the senior class. Although I didn’t participate in a plethora of extracurriculars, I was still heavily involved in school clubs and sports, which came with the pressure of feeling like I had to prove something to my peer counterparts.
As a result of that, I’ve grown up with the overwhelming desire to overperform and achieve in an area where I’m junior to everyone else in the room. However, that has not stopped me from pursuing my biggest dreams!
“I’ve also always put a lot of pressure to overachieve and be perfect and that’s just really how I grew up … then whenever I don’t, it feels like I’m not doing enough,” freshman Maddy Goble said.
It is quite common for women, like myself, to experience and grapple with intense burnout in everyday life. This past semester, I was too involved with social activities in an attempt to fit in as much as I could, but I fell significantly behind in school and my GPA dropped much lower than I would have ever allowed in high school.
“I was raised in a household where if I didn’t get higher than an 85, it wasn’t good enough. It took me getting to rock bottom mentally for that to turn to my parents helping me understand where I went wrong,” freshman James Phelps said.
Similarly, I was raised in a household where my parents seemed to understand my academic capabilities and expect a higher performance. I have been an honors student since middle school. Coming home with a C meant that I needed to work harder.
My weakest subject was math, so throughout high school I was required to attend tutoring sessions, and if I didn’t attend I would get reprimanded for it. I have struggled with asking for help even when I knew for a fact that I wasn’t able to do something on my own, which stems from the ingrained idea that I need to be independent and non-reliant on others.
“At the same time, there can also be an expectation that [women] serve as an emotional support system within their friend groups, organizations, teams and families. This combination can add another layer of responsibility and increase the pressure to balance personal success with caring for the needs of others,” professor Mikayla Sengle said.
When I was carrying the weight of graduating early, being on a varsity sports team and the Editor-in-Chief of my high school newspaper meant that I often neglected my own emotions and internal conflicts to accommodate the needs of my friends, family and peers. I felt disconnected from my friends and family because I was working myself to almost absolute burnout trying to overperform and prove to not only to myself, but everyone around me that I can take on an immense amount of responsibility and still rise to the top.
In doing so, I hit rock bottom multiple times, but I always return to one question: ‘What if I succeed and what if all the hard work I’ve done pays off?’ The main driving force behind all my motivation and why I push myself so hard is grounded in making myself and others around me proud.
From a mental health perspective, neglecting to take time for yourself while juggling several responsibilities can lead to burnout, sometimes more severe than a minor setback. Taking time for myself meant spending time doing what I was genuinely passionate about and things that made me happy!
“I’ve learned that when I neglect these things, I start to feel burnt out and overwhelmed. When that happens, it actually becomes harder for me to focus and complete my schoolwork. Taking time to care for myself helps me stay balanced and ultimately allows me to be more present and productive in the long run,” graduate student Molly Myers said.
Setting boundaries in academia and professional settings is imperative. I have eased my mindset in wanting to work harder than my peers. While I am the Vice President of the Winthrop Creative Writing Club, as well as a Staff Writer for The Johnsonian, I have not joined anything else as a testament to elevating my mental health over my desire to be great at everything I do.
“I’ve set an involvement boundary that I wouldn’t join any organizations until my later years of college. This has allowed me to have so much ‘free’ time to complete work for classes and even give me mental breaks in between,” freshman Amani Gibbs said.
These testimonies of students discussing their experiences with hustle culture is not at all the issue—the crash intensity of burnout is. Hustle culture has a tendency to make someone feel trapped, but there is hope for redefining what it means to strive on a college campus as a woman when remembering not to confuse efforts with results.
