Under the fluorescent lights of Hesburgh Library, you can find countless students clicking away on their keyboards. Every student is different: some spend their days in labs mixing chemicals while others spend their time reading and analyzing classic literature. However, despite their differences, they all seem the same under the loud, monotonous sound of Macbook Pro keyboards.
At an academically rigorous school like Notre Dame, it can be easy to feel like an outsider. Everybody seems to get perfect grades, do every extracurricular activity and still have time to be with their friends. You begin to feel that you are the only person who cannot juggle everything. All of a sudden that stress makes you feel like you should not be here. Everyone is better than you.
However, you are not the only person that feels this way. Most people feel the same. But since no one knows everybody is feeling that way, they think they have to prove that they deserve to be here. They must join every club and take every credit they can. There is no time to nap or sit in bed, scrolling through TikToks. Instead, you must be doing something productive. You WILL prove you deserve to be here.
The way to establish yourself as a great student is always to be doing something. The pressure to always be busy creates an environment where everyone feels they are not doing enough. If you do not have homework or a club meeting to attend, you are behind everyone else. Everyone’s major is more challenging than the others, and everybody’s classes are more difficult.
The feeling of always having to do something leads to a weirdly competitive environment. No, we are not at Cornell where we throw away other student’s notes. Instead, we put on a shield where we look friendly, but behind that we are trying to prove we are better and work harder.
Furthermore, the problem with proving that you are busier than someone else is that “being busy” really does not mean anything. I can sit at my laptop screen, letting the blue light shine against my face and acting like I am doing Aristotle-level thinking about my 20-page reading. However, most of the time when I have a reading open on my screen, I am staring at the same page while I am zoned out, debating whether I should spend seven flex points on a Starbucks energy drink. This facade makes me look efficient to my classmates who pass me in the library when, in reality, I am not actually doing anything.
I am not even trying to make myself look busy, but someone on the outside does not know what I am doing — the pressure to be busy trickles down, hitting them. Then, I walk into the library, and I see everyone working — I feel like I am not doing enough and I start overcompensating. Then, again, other people around me feel as if they are not doing enough. The snowball continues down the hill like an avalanche about to hit home.
Despite this, in reality, we are all doing enough. No one slipped through admission’s hands. We are all different and bring something to Notre Dame that makes us a top university. Even if this sappy mentality does not satisfy your fears, the only way to combat the problem is within yourself. It is natural to get jealous of someone. However, we have to realize that our classmates are not our competitors. Everyone works differently, and everyone is involved in different activities. Talk with your friends and classmates and actually ask them about their classes and clubs. See what they are doing and figure out if you are interested in it.
If we force ourselves to live under the stress that we are behind, we will never let ourselves catch up. Not everyone is always completely productive, working tirelessly on a 50-credit course load and 20 clubs where they are the president of each. Let yourself find your place naturally and pursue what you are interested in. Everyone has their own problems and their own struggles, some just look like they don’t.
