My school loves crunch culture

25 Nov, 2024

One day I was procrastinating on a random homework assignment I had to do, and I re-watched  Noddle's video on crunch culture. The first time I watched it was a year ago. I didn't think much of it.¹ But what I lived as a student made me have a completely different reaction to Noodle's talk.

Game devs do have it really hard... They are in an environment of constant abuse, and they always end up sacrificing their health, their family, their friends, and in the end, their own life. And the thing is, I relate a lot to most of what Noodle said in this video as a student...

I found that the situation that most game devs are in is very similar to what I lived as a student. It pains me to say that, but it's true. 

We are living our lives always pushing ourselves to get things that won't make us happy. Especially students who are aiming to get good grades. This is the entire reason why Laurie Santos got interested in the science of happiness in the first place. 

I believed that crunch was the right thing to do. You have to sacrifice a lot to succeed. That's why I wanted to write about my life as a student, the mindset I had, and what made me change my mind about this situation.

Constant crunch

We are always in this mindset that we should sacrifice a bit of our life to achieve something professionally. That we should sacrifice some time with our family, with our friends, some of our passions, or some of our happiness to get that graduation. 

And to keep up with everything we have to do, many students sacrifice their sleep to have enough time. And since the professors are encouraging this practice and other students are often doing it, well you feel like you HAVE to do it too! Right? So you put in those all-nighters to finish those exercises. This not only affects your academic performance (negatively) but also your physical and mental health.

You know what? I don't think that's a bad thing to put some effort into what you want to do. If you really love what you are studying. If it's your dream, your calling, then you should make this your priority to achieve it. Because it can bring you fulfillment and happiness. But sacrificing your own health or well-being to achieve it? It is not a good idea.

But another problem here is that it's not often the case. There aren't a lot of students that choose to become engineers. The random events of their lives led them to this school, and now we ask them to sacrifice their lives to achieve something they are not even sure they want. We promise them that everything will be awesome after they have their diploma and that every problem they have will disappear. 

By the way, everyone tells themselves that everything will be alright next year or after graduation. But what would we tell ourselves when this kind of suffering would happen?

• "You'll be happier after you graduate!"
• "Don't worry, everything will be alright after you get this promotion."
• "Don't worry, everything will be alright after we ship this product."

I don't want to always wait to live my life. I want to live it now, to create memories with my friends, to follow my dreams. 

The whole idea of giving up sleep definitely needs its own post. I recall doing that quite often last year. The effects of sleep deprivation I experienced, along with the hallucinations, made it clear that it was a bad decision. I might have even shaved a few years off my life because of those choices.

Always on the verge of breaking

This lifestyle has serious consequences. The pressure students put on themselves makes daily life difficult and leads to harmful effects.

The pressure to perform can be overwhelming, leading to constant stress.You always try to be up to the task and to do what the professor is expecting from you. It makes every grade, every class, or every test stressful. This transforms into chronic stress. 

This kind of situation can easily lead to burnout. Life feels so depressing when it happen... You don't know if there is anything you can really do, you start to doubt everything you try. You don't believe in yourself; you feel worthless. Nothing doesn't really matter anymore.

This intense focus on academics often leads to a situation where you don't have enough time for your friends or your family. There is not enough room in your life for both social interactions and school. You often have to choose between academics or family. Many choose isolation but never get good grades either.

Now that you lost your friends, your health, your self-esteem, and your well-being, your life feels miserable right? But you can't just choose to stop school, it's impossible. You want that dream work of yours, it will make you happy for sure. Even if you suffer every day and that life feels like hell, you can't stop.

And even if all of that is happening, you always try to push yourself a little bit more. Always try to push your limits, and always sacrifice a bigger part of your life. Since what you sacrificed until now doesn't seem to be enough. You do that because you don't have anything else anyway. 

But you tolerate all of this. You can wait. Everyone thinks that they can wait in these conditions and that everything will be better afterward. So they undergo. They wait. They sacrifice.

Until one day they can't anymore.  

Stress casualties

For those who aren't familiar with this term, here is a definition given in this article by NeuroLaunch on the subject.²

"These are individuals who have been so profoundly affected by stress that their ability to function in daily life is significantly impaired."

I've seen a lot of my classmates who have been stress casualties, and I've always thought it was unfortunate but that's it. It happened all the time anyway. But really it hit different when it's a dear friend of yours who becomes a stress casualty.

You see them happy, laughing, and having fun like normal, and then one day they stop smiling like something just broke inside of them. You continue to see them worsen day after day after day. And you feel worthless, unable to help them in any way³ and it really pains you to see someone as lively as that friend to just die from the inside. 

Then one day, they just disappear. You can't contact them, no one can. They are just gone. You don't know if they will come back in a month or two.

Maybe this person that once was so joyful and funny is gone, forever, just like that. ⁴

It's when a situation like that appends that you really understand that all of this is really really not normal. The way schools and education work is just so dangerous and unhealthy. The way schools function is really destroying lives. It's destroying my own life, it's destroying those of my loved ones and of my classmates. I've seen it many times with my own eyes. Heck, it even destroys the lives of those working in the education field!

It really seems wild to me that we are going through these kinds of mental torture. And I think that this is enough. So I don't care about what they want from me but from now on, I will start to live my life to the fullest.

What we can remember

School is an ongoing abuse. At least that is what I've seen so far sadly.

If you recognize yourself in what I just said, I really truly hope that you will be able to recover from this breakdown. I really hope that you will soon be able to enjoy life to the fullest.

As I am writing those words, I don't even know if what I just said is genuine and that there is a serious problem with our schools, or if all of this suffering is just normal. Maybe I should just shut my mouth and roll with it? Maybe I am right to tell you everything? 

The thing is that everyone is living the same thing but no one talks about it. At least I want to create a conversation with this post and maybe things would change a bit?

I don't want another friend of mine to disappear again.

 I want to take action, to make school life a bit more bearable. So that we students could actually do what we are here for: learning. Learning the concepts and skills necessary to become employable. But also to be able to flourish as a person.

Well thank you, funny cartoon man, you made me realize how problematic our current education system is.⁵ Also your video was funny. 

With a lot of love and encouragement - Muliama

#M.Sanity