A Depressing Mentality

It is Mental Health Awareness Week, although I suspect that most Harvard students have been too stressed out writing term papers to notice. Daily events have been scheduled to draw attention to the high levels of mental health problems at Harvard. Those problems were starkly demonstrated by a University Health Services survey that was released last month, showing that 47.4 percent of students reported feeling depressed during the previous academic year. Even more worryingly, the survey revealed that almost 10 percent of the students who responded had considered committing suicide.

It is tempting to diagnose the cause of this unhappiness as too much work and too little time out of the classroom. Or, put another way, it seems obvious that students’ personal problems are exacerbated by the quantity and quality of academic work they are expected to churn out on a regular basis. Of course, this pressure is generally self-inflicted, which points towards why so many Harvard undergraduates might be unhappy. Nonetheless, it is pretty uncontestable that any increase in the volume of schoolwork would also add to current levels of depression. This view was neatly encapsulated by outgoing Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis ’68 in a private Feb. 24 letter to Dean of the Faculty William C. Kirby. He wrote, “Extracurricular activities are, if nothing else, stress-relieving; I suspect that if the time students now spend on extracurriculars were spent instead in the libraries, we would have an even more serious mental health problem than we do now.”

Lewis’ analysis at first seems spot on. Certainly, more time spent slaving away over academics could not possibly be good for anyone’s state of mind. But, although extracurriculars may be less stressful than academics, they can often be anything but relaxing. Harvard’s mental health problem might well be more acute if students traded extracurricular time for extra studying—but it would be far better if they realized that those were not their only two choices.

In theory, of course, extracurriculars should be the ultimate stress-busters. It is hard to think of a better way to unwind from the stressful tedium of Harvard academics than by having a game of ultimate frisbee, acting in a student-directed play or scribbling a few articles for campus publications. That idealized view of extracurriculars, however, bears little relation to reality. For many students—myself included—the Harvard experience revolves around serious participation in a chosen extracurricular (or, at the most, two or three of them). Everything else, from socializing to Social Studies, takes a back seat. When you spend over 25 hours a week on a voluntary extracurricular, it is hard to see how it couldn’t dominate your life. One friend even decided to come to Harvard because he felt he would have a more fruitful college experience working on The Crimson than on the Brown Daily Herald.

Choosing a college based on its student newspaper may be at the extreme end of the spectrum, but a part of that attitude is apparent in every undergraduate who is significantly involved in an extracurricular activity. And that means virtually every student. (It is almost impossible to think of someone who does not participate in some form of structured activity outside class.)

Moreover, few Harvard students are content to take part in extracurriculars for their own sakes; involvement is almost always contingent upon rising up the ranks to a leadership position. Harvard students almost always led their chosen extracurriculars in high school—and they aren’t keen to change that pattern after arriving in Cambridge. Those students who do not make the cut almost always leave to join (or form) other organizations where they feel that they can make more of a mark. Harvard extracurriculars make McKinsey’s famous two-year “up or out” promotions policy look tame.

It is this impulse to lead that explains why there are over 35 undergraduate publications. Lewis, rather optimistically, wrote to then-Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles on Dec. 1, 1999 that “the growth [of extracurricular groups] is a natural consequence of the increased diversity, talent, and complexity of the student body.” All of that seems perfectly valid. But the proliferation is also due to the unrelenting drive of the student body.

The unceasing psychological quest for self-affirming achievement, not the need to relax after a hard day of classes, is what makes so many Harvard students immerse themselves in extracurriculars. As long as Harvard remains a center of excellence—meaning, in the true sense of the word, a place where almost everyone seeks a field in which to excel—there will be no way to change this state of affairs. In fact, such change may not even be desirable: extracurriculars at Harvard create valuable end products precisely because of the ambition and drive of the students who devote their undergraduate careers to them.

As we near the end of Mental Health Awareness Week, though, it is worth realizing that Harvard students are not limited to the two options of spending more time in the libraries or totally immersing themselves in extracurriculars. There is nothing shameful about spending an evening—or any number of them—in front of the television, doing nothing productive at all. Unfortunately, until the student body learns how to relax, mental health problems here will remain serious. And as long as Harvard retains its (entirely understandable) desire to admit only the brightest and most highly motivated applicants, it is hard to see how any substantial progress can be made to improve undergraduate mental health. Which is, in many ways, the most depressing thought of all.

Anthony S.A. Freinberg ’04 is a history concentrator in Lowell House. His column appears on alternate Fridays.