This week my students wrote their midterm exams. The exams only take up half of the class, so
I used the rest of the class to discuss the topic of stress in the workplace. No
doubt the onslaught of exams and assignments due right now provided them with a
way to personalize the key messages of the textbook. I began the discussion with an alarming study
done by the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada where they found
that of 30,000 post-secondary students surveyed:- 89% were overwhelmed by obligations
- 54% have feelings of hopelessness
- 64% felt lonely in the last 12 months
- 56% felt overwhelming anxiety
- 10% seriously considered suicide
Even more interesting was that the study attributed stress and anxiety as the two main causes of poor academic performance, each explaining 39% and
28% respectively.
What struck a chord with me is that my students didn’t seem
at all surprised by these statistics. In
this backdrop of unprecedented student stress, I then asked them to think about what
might be causing this level of stress in their lives and of the lives of a good chunk of the
30,000 students in the study. I was quite
taken by the honesty of the opinions put forward by my students. But I was more importantly concerned by what
they were telling me. What came from
this discussion was an expression of immense pressure imposed on them by those
who ironically were meant to support and nurture them. Students discussed the role of their parents
in setting expectations that were highly unrealistic, such as the need to
maintain the 91% average that got them into university even though the expected average of undergraduate students during the program is 77%. In addition, although business programs tend
to admit students on the basis of a balance between good grades and a demonstration
of leadership, commitment to extracurricular activities, and community
involvement - the very things that might reduce their stress level - these very programs all but snuff out these latter qualities by failing to reward
them for continuing along these lines.
Another point of discussion was the stress levels associated
with getting good grades that impact their ability to get a job upon
graduation. There is a sense among students that their grades are paramount in determining whether or not they
will succeed in life, despite the fact that a majority of employers do not look at grades. In my teaching
career, and even compared with my own time as a business student, I have
witnessed an increase among students in the prioritization of getting a job and a simultaneous
relegation of what many would argue is the spirit of university life: to
learn, contribute to a learning community, develop as a person, give back to
the community.
I worry that this has particularly important consequence for
business students.
Consider a recent US study done that compared satisfaction
levels of university/college graduates across different degrees (e.g. business,
humanities, science). They found that
only 37% of business graduates were deeply interested in the work that they do, which
is significantly lower than graduates in non-business disciplines where 45% were
deeply interested. What is particularly
striking is that business graduates lag behind their non-business peers in “liking
what they do each day and being motivated to achieve their goals”. And all of this comes with a slap in the face
as business graduates are not making any more than their non-business
counterparts. While this is a US study, I have a sinking suspicion that the same results would emerge in Canada.
So if I were a business student, I’d be asking, "Why am I going
through all this stress when it’s only going to lead to huge dissatisfaction in
the job I’m in afterwards in comparison with my non-business peers?". These studies suggest to me that we have
imposed on our students an expectation that they endure high levels of stress
and anxiety for jobs that they don’t really care about doing.
To this very point, I was in a meeting a couple of years back when one of my
colleagues was befuddled by the fact that a majority of our undergraduate
students go on to jobs in what are known as the ABCs – Accounting, Banking, and
Consulting. He wondered why so few of
our graduates are interested in jobs at Google, Amazon, Apple, Facebook or
their equivalents. Notice that unlike
the ABCs, these jobs create new value for society by introducing products or
services that have the potential to revolutionize how we live and resolve some
of the most important problems we endure today. In fact, a study done a few years ago by economists Stephen Cecchetti and Enisse Kharroubi found in a 2012 study that when too many business graduates go to the finance sector, economies decline because strong talent is wasted for financial projects that don't do much to create growth over the long haul.
At the beginning of the term, I asked students to fill out a
profile card to tell me a bit about them.
During the coffee breaks of each class, I ask students one-on-one for
elaboration of what they’ve written on their profile. From these conversations, I’m constantly
amazed by the passion they exude for particular things, their diverse
backgrounds, interests, hobbies, uniqueness and their general perspective. But there is a sad but real disconnect
between these characteristics and what they indicate, in the same stroke of
their pen, as their area of intended specialization in business - the ABCs - even though they are passionate to do much more.
Rarely do business students get credit for engaging in activities
that do not fall within a narrowly defined scope of business acumen, a model of
curricula that predates even my time.
When I think of it this way, I’m not entirely surprised by the stress
and anxiety levels of students and the lack of satisfaction and meaning they
get from their jobs post-graduation.
To any business students reading this right now, in the midst
of the daily pressure of writing your exams and completing your assignments,
try to infuse your time here with what university was meant to be about – self-development,
learning, harnessing your passion, and finding meaning. Not only will this help manage your stress level,
it will also ensure that you find yourself in a career that is meaningful, has
purpose and interests you to your core.
