I am in my second year working as a university professor. It is a phase of my life that has enriched me in many aspects, such as knowing how to communicate effectively, planning relevant topics for students, and being open to listening to opinions, ideas, and challenges.

Although I usually listen to school challenges, I am sometimes concerned about dealing with challenges of daily life. Because surprise! Students have a life outside of their classes and personal, family or any other category of responsibilities that may affect their university life, attention or performance.

Adding to this factor, it is important to bring to the table that the COVID-19 pandemic caused one of the worst student dropout crisis in Mexico, this diagnosis was reported by the Survey for the Measurement of the COVID-19 Impact on Education (ECOVID-ED ) 2020, which showed in its results that 5.2 million students from 3 to 29 years of age, which represents 9.6% in relation to the total population of that age, are not enrolled in school cycles for reasons related to covid- 19, as the lack of resources.

The consequences that the COVID-19 pandemic has left us are still very present, charging physical and emotional "bills" in human beings.

Today more than ever, feeling and practicing the ability to empathize with students, more than a suggestion is a condition.

How many students have to work in addition to attending classes, have to keep their scholarship grades and meet the conditions that comes with having it, have to attend to a family or personal situation, have to plan their commuting to get to college because their mobility is limited, have to dedicate extra hours of their days to co-curricular activities because they are part of a high-performance team, have to adapt to the “remote” mode of classes and have guaranteed connectivity in their homes?

All these factors are triggers for the perfect storm for a student to suffer from "burnout", also known as "job burnout" which in summary can be defined as a state of chronic stress that triggers a wide list of discomforts such as anxiety, low self-esteem, depression and physical ailments.

And it is that as I mentioned in my TEDx talk "Never give 100, my sister told me" (currently in Spanish) if one part of our life is not right, if it is not balanced, it is likely that all other aspects of our life will be impacted By this situation.

A study carried out at the Ohio State University on its students showed that in August 2020, burnout syndrome affected 40% of its students, however by April 2021, this number had increased to 71%. Among their recommendations for handling this situation, they suggest not waiting to ask for help and invite you to seek professional help immediately if your symptoms or emotions are affecting concentration or functioning.

In another study conducted by the American Psychological Association on stress in America, it mentions that Generation Z adults report higher stress levels. So, college burnout statistics have been shown to sit at a remarkable 87% of students.

Probably one cause of this situation is the overstimulation that we experience because we constantly find ourselves interacting and receiving information from social media.

And well… I am interacting with university students and although I do not know their past, my responsibility is that their present is relevant and valuable to them.

But if I wanted to guess the past of some, I could find some cases of the "golden child" syndrome, which is characterized in childhoods that grow up being exceptional in their studies and where one or both parents project high expectations on them, to the point of herald a successful destiny, triumphs are celebrated and the search for perfection is the constant goal.

And making a brief pause, the idea that we have to be good at everything we do is one of the irrational beliefs defined by psychologist Albert Ellis, creator of REBT (Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy) that can potentially limit our personality and impede our human fulfillment.

If we dimension things, it is wrong to think that these gifted childhoods develop with high levels of security and self-confidence, we cannot demand perfection from a girl who on one hand does well in her classes and on the other, still finds it complex to fasten her shoes. Practicing a meritocracy without empathy can cause her to feel unable to meet her parents' expectations and she may even grow up feeling as a fraud and in constant fear of the uncertainty that her facade would be "discovered”.

Finally, "the golden child" as time goes by, is prone to experience a moment of collapse when the expectations placed on them are not met. And quoting the comment from “The School of Life” which is a global organization dedicated to developing emotional intelligence:

“A life does not need to be golden to be valuable; we can live in lower metal forms, in pewter or iron, and still be worthy of love and proper self-esteem.”

The moment we learn to calibrate expectations, we will achieve the fulfillment that we so much seek in our lives.

At the moment that we learn to distribute our energies in the things that really fill our lives, we will know where we are going to give our 100% and where not.

My sister recently told me about some words from the former president of Uruguay, José Mujica about the need to have a sober life, later I gave myself the task of capturing these comments from a documentary in which he participated: 

“… what we are spending is life time, because when I buy something, or you, you don't buy it with money, you buy it with the lifetime you had to spend to have that money. But with this difference: the only thing that cannot be bought is life. Life is spent. And it is miserable to spend your life to lose freedom.

So, taking all these considerations into account, my personal responsibility as a university professor is to plan my classes in the most optimal way, taking into account that these students are spending their lifetime with me and that I must allow them to create a life for themselves, with content in which they can develop their criteria and distinguish the things that give them happiness, that matter to them and that ultimately leads them to achieve a stable life.

This article was translated by @ross.gspr

Disclaimer: The views expressed are personal opinions of the authors and do not reflect the views of affiliated organizations. The information is for informational purposes only and not intended as professional advice.

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Citroner, G. (2021, July 26). College Students Increasingly Report High Levels of Anxiety and Burnout During the Pandemic. Healthline. https://www.healthline.com/health-news/college-students-increasingly-report-high-levels-of-anxiety-and-burnout-during-the-pandemic

Academic Burnout Statistics to Know. (2022, March 2). Conquer Your Exam. https://www.conqueryourexam.com/academic-burnout-statistics-to-know/

The School of Life. (2018, August 30). The Golden Child Syndrome. https://www.theschooloflife.com/article/the-golden-child-syndrome/

País, E. E. (2015, September 17). Los “47 segundos de sabiduría” de José Mujica sobre el verdadero precio de las cosas. Verne. https://verne.elpais.com/verne/2015/09/17/articulo/1442483934_276253.html

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