Meeting Our Deadlines, Forgetting Our Needs

How the drive for academic success can get in the way of academic success

By Emma Smisek

There are two contradictory messages that campus culture seems to reinforce: one, sent by many mental health and stress management resources, reminds us to take care of ourselves and make time to breathe. The other is to take on as much work as we can as quickly as we can and to accept that we may destroy ourselves in the process.

The second message is more ingrained, making college one of the most stressful periods of our lives. It makes us vulnerable, and we forget the first message, neglecting our most basic needs. Food, water, sleep, and health are easy to forget when juggling multiple deadlines.

Within psychology, there is a theory of motivation called Maslow's hierarchy of needs, first described by Abraham Maslow in 1943; it describes five levels of needs, each of which must be met to achieve the needs above it. Depicted as a pyramid, at the base are physiological needs, like food, sleep, health, and shelter. Above them are safety needs, which include a safe environment as well as financial, personal, and emotional security. The next two levels are social belonging and self-esteem (earning respect, recognition, confidence, etc.), and at the top of the pyramid is the need for self-actualization, a sense of intrinsic satisfaction with one’s life. Therefore, our physiological and safety needs should theoretically be met before we're able to function on an academic level and feel mentally engaged and fulfilled.

Granted, this theory is a bit outdated; psychologists now recognize that these levels of needs and motivations fluctuate based on our situation, and overlap at any given point in time. It is a useful concept, however, and if you look at a person’s life and see that they are consistently lacking basic needs, it’s unlikely that they are meeting their “higher” needs.

In my life as a student, I’ve sensed an expectation—real or imagined—for the pyramid to be inverted, an expectation for academic achievement to take precedence over concern for myself as a healthy, emotionally secure individual. How many of us have told ourselves, “I don’t have time to eat tonight—I need to finish this paper?” How many of us have come to rely on sleep deprivation as a “tactic” for getting schoolwork done? The need for social belonging also suffers as the amount of quality time with people close to us diminishes.

Part of the problem with this reversal of needs is that the motivation to succeed in school cannot hold. At least, intrinsic motivation can’t. In other words, it’s difficult to summon the motivation to reach the top two levels of the pyramid, self-esteem and self-actualization, when our basic needs are not being met. It’s difficult to derive meaning and fulfilment from our work when we don’t have the energy to focus on anything other than meeting each deadline. However, the extrinsic motivation of higher grades on a transcript can be enough to string us along. 

Is this what academic culture does to us or something we do to ourselves? University faculty, in particular, seem to have trouble understanding the harm of excess academic pressure; many of them tend to assume that their class is the only thing going on in their students’ lives. University administration like to make sure we know the clock is ticking; even if 15 credits is too much for someone, they’d better try to get out of here in four years.

However, this isn’t an “us versus them” issue. I’m aware that I’m guilty of imposing such pressures on myself. It’s hypocritical of me, then, to suggest that students should take more control of their school-life balance and find better solutions than popping caffeine pills and chasing them with coffee and a Red Bull—but being a hypocrite does not mean one is wrong.

In a world where the word “busy” is often worn as a badge of honor, it’s hard to know how far we should push ourselves before it becomes unhealthy. For much of the schoolwork we do, for much of what we put ourselves through, there is a blurry line between, “it shouldn’t be this way,” and “this is just how things need to be for now.”

In cases where the latter is true, we are better equipped to take it in stride when we have developed habits that tend to our everyday needs. Simple habits such as keeping a consistent sleep schedule and eating regular meals, though obvious, are often forgotten. Learning to track them, designating a set amount of time each day to work on assignments, and knowing how to ask for help can prepare us for the overwhelming times when we forget that losing five points for turning in an assignment one day late is not the end of the world. Even when pulling an all-nighter seems like the only option, it’s freeing to know that taking a breath now and then won’t jeopardize our academic careers or degree progress. After all, earning an undergraduate degree primarily advertises to others that we can listen and follow directions for four years. 

But can we do it without the pyramid collapsing?