If you’re anything like me, coming back to campus for the fall semester feels like a blank slate, a chance to turn the page and start a new chapter. I revert to the little first grader I once was, excitedly preparing for the first day of school. But instead of searching for a new backpack and figuring out who I will sit with at lunch, I buy a daily planner and set high aspirations for what I should accomplish this semester.
Maybe I want to get a 4.0 GPA, or be more involved on campus, or meet new people — or maybe it’s all of the above. I meticulously plan my Google Calendar, join the GroupMe for a million different clubs and promise myself that this semester will be different.
But this kind of back-to-school productivity craze doesn’t set us up for success — it sets us up for burnout.
By mid-semester, the perfect routine I’ve created disappears. I start sleeping through those early morning alarms, skipping the gym and falling behind on my work. The tasks on my to-do list remain incomplete and the club meetings I swore I would attend get lost in the sea of my daily schedule. I end the semester exhausted and defeated, wondering why my goals were left unmet and what I can change for next semester.
And then the cycle begins anew.
As it turns out, this phenomenon is shared by many students. A study associated with the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania discusses the “fresh start effect,” a phenomenon in which events that separate the passage of time and represent the beginning of new cycles throughout each year are followed by increases in aspirational behavior.
This effect is why we set resolutions at the beginning of each calendar year and explains the productivity craze we see at the start of a new semester. These temporal landmarks present us with the opportunity to start fresh and work on our goals.
But it’s not just the resetting of the school calendar that tricks us into setting new goals. The season itself reinforces the illusion of a clean slate.
In an article featured on Verywell Mind, Dr. Ronit Levy stated, “As young kids, we learned that the fall is filled with new people, places, and opportunities. It’s when we got all of our new school supplies and were excited to dive into new activities. That association stays with us into adulthood.”
This, along with the approaching holidays and the changing weather and wardrobes, contributes substantially to the overall air of change and excitement the fall semester brings — the opportunities available to you feel endless, and there is so much to look forward to in the coming months.
Yet that very sense of possibility can also tempt students into overloading themselves from the start.
While the fall semester may seem like an exciting new start, its romanticization and the sudden productivity rush it brings can contribute to subsequent burnout when taken too far. A 2024 study from Journal of Affective Disorders Reports found significant associations between higher levels of overcommitment — or when people, often ambitious and seeking approval, excessively invest in activities — and increased burnout symptoms.
Simply put, when you are involved in too much, you put yourself on a fast track to burning out. When I start the semester by committing to a bunch of extracurriculars on top of my heavy class load and other responsibilities, I’m not setting myself up for success — I’m setting myself up to crash. What feels like ambition in September usually turns into exhaustion and disappointment by November when I spread myself too thin.
In a world where, according to a 2023 study by Zipdo, half of college students reported experiencing burnout symptoms and 70 percent felt overwhelmed by academic pressure, burnout has become increasingly normalized. And the romanticization of performative productivity, like the one at the start of a new semester, facilitates this culture. Students often wear their exhaustion as a badge of honor, bragging about how many all-nighters they’ve pulled and how many Red Bulls they’ve downed to showcase just how much they can accomplish in one semester.
However, this relentless ambition is not sustainable, and a study published in Front Public Health showed pushing at that pace only leads to exhaustion — and ironically, less productivity. By putting too much pressure on yourself to achieve high standards in a short period of time, you are actually further distancing yourself from that goal.
After repeating this exhausting cycle semester after semester, I realized something needed to change. That’s why I am entering this semester with a new mindset — I want to achieve balance rather than perfection to reach a more sustainable form of growth.
Instead of attending a million general interest meetings, I am picking one or two clubs that I can fully commit to. Instead of trying to explore all my different interests at once, I am tackling them one at a time. And instead of being afraid to miss out on all the opportunities available to me right now, I am focusing on fully reaping all the benefits of the few opportunities I can take advantage of.
Everyone says that college is the time to try new things and build yourself up, but that doesn’t mean it all needs to happen in a single semester. A sustainable pace may not feel as exciting as sprinting toward every opportunity, but it’s the surest way to turn ambition into lasting growth.
Danica Lyktey, a sophomore double-majoring in psychology and philosophy, politics and law, is a Pipe Dream Opinions intern.
Views expressed in the opinions pages represent the opinions of the columnists. The only piece that represents the view of the Pipe Dream Editorial Board is the Staff Editorial.