KANSAN.COM / THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN / FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2011 / NEWS
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Ben Pirotte/KANSAN
building is going to collapse."
Nick Fratta, a junior in architecture, said sleep was the first thing to go when student workloads get demanding. By its nature, sleep deficiency becomes an overarching burden that splinters into other problems. "You reach a breaking point, physically," he said. "Everybody seems to fall apart." He said one friend sanded a wood model in her sleep. Another crashed down into the project on his desk during the morning's most critical hours. Fratta uses classmates' coats as makeshift blankets to sleep under tables and in hallways. Prepared students bring sleeping bags.
Hamilton said lack of sleep drains the immune system, too, and Fratta agreed. "When a deadline is approaching, I get sick. Without fail," he said. The studio model by nature keeps sleep-deprived students together in the same room for days on end, all with lowered immune systems, all handling the same door knobs and shop tools. Few have time to bathe or even change clothes.
"It's a horribly unhealthy lifestyle," said Blake Thames, a senior in architecture who spends 80 hours each week on coursework. He's in what's commonly known as a competition studio, with deadlines every few weeks rather than months. Accordingly, he's pulled more all-nighters this year than his previous years combined. It's a Christmas tradition for him to be sick the first week of every winter break; the grueling toll of finals week on his immune system.
The lack of sleep compounds a program's ever-present stress and anxiety, Thames added. This is a national trend. An annual Higher Education Research Institute survey released earlier this year reported record lows in the emotional health of college freshmen. In contrast, students rated their drive to achieve as higher than ever, pushed by rising tuition and unemployment rates, analysts said.
In a studio full of cutting blades and power tools, sleep deprivation can mean more injuries. Sliced and nicked fingers are commonplace, the scars of which decorate the hands of many architects in the field today. "Our rule is: If it bleeds longer than three hours, you should go to the hospital," Kerwin said. The only first-aid kit is in Marvin Hall's craft shop, she said, which closes at nine each night. Some students treat cuts with super glue and masking tape. Kerwin recalled one student who sliced his finger during a project, leaving a chunk of his skin on the floor. Emergency room trips are avoided; not for monetary expenses, but for lack of time.
"No one likes pulling all-nighters," said Thames, "but it becomes a sign of dedication." Like the engineering program, architecture schools' low acceptance rates and grueling expectations produce an environment where neglect of physical and mental health is the norm. Students log the hours spent on a project for bragging rights, and each all-nighter becomes a badge of honor. The costs of such a culture, however, can be high.
In 2000, an architecture student at Southern University in Louisiana who pulled two all-nighters prior to a review died in a head-on car accident. The event prompted the American Institute of Architecture Students, the discipline's national student organization, to form a "Studio Culture Task Force" to promote discussions about unsafe expectations and how schools can look for alternatives. Their findings report that 73 percent of architectural students agreed they "often feel isolated from others outside the architecture school", and 80 percent "found the workload at architecture school overwhelming."
Now the AIAS wants to eliminate the all-nighter from architecture education and, ultimately, the field itself, with the understanding that today's students will run tomorrow's firms. In 2005, the National Architecture Accreditation Board began requiring schools to draft and post studio culture policies that acknowledge and address unhealthy learning environments. Changing centuries of practice, however, takes time.
"The idea of working all-nighters is engrained in the culture," said AIAS Vice President Danielle McDonough. "Ten years may seem like a long time, but it hasn't fully caught on yet."
Nils Gore, interim chair of architecture, said he doubted centuries of tradition could change. "I think AIAS' venture to kill the all-nighter is hopeless," he said. "You might make small changes to nudge them here and there, but I think it comes down to the person's work ethic and their personal drive."
draw out strengths in students preparing for the professional world. Students interviewed for this story all stressed a genuine love for their discipline, whether it be computer science, mechanical engineering or architecture. Indeed, their passion is the only thing that could carry them day-to-day.
That personal drive came from cultures of competition in professional schools, which evolved to
Yet that same personal drive helps perpetuate the culture, to their own detriment. People only have 24 hours each day, with finite mental and physical capacities that sometimes go neglected until it's too late. In December 2009, a KU junior in architecture was working late into the night in the Marvin craft shop before a review when she injured herself on a table saw, severing multiple fingers.
The event sent shockwaves through the school. Newer, safer table saws replaced the old machines in Marvin Hall. The dean sent out a letter promising a new policy. Professors urged students to guard themselves and get more sleep. For a while, change was on the forefront. Ultimately, however, the reality and rigors of the program prevailed and the work culture remained. Two years later, the workloads of the University's most competitive programs continue to dominate the lives and health of the students they're intended to advance.
Yet history shows that if a culture of overwork and time constraint is to be changed and healthy balance promoted, refocusing that personal drive is of the utmost importance. Though it took more than a century to see their cultural change come to fruition, when more than 40,000 workers of America's labor movement gathered in Chicago on Mayday, 1886, a new song was on their lips:
We want to feel the sunshine; We want to smell the flowers. We're sure that God has willed it, And we mean to have eight hours.
Edited by Joel Petterson
Reality: not recommended
The National Sleep Foundation suggests adults receive seven to nine hours of sleep per night. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention advises two hours and 30 minutes of moderate to intense aerobic activity per week.
NICK FRATTA Junior architecture
7 a.m.
8 a.m. Wake up
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Desk attendant
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STUDENT SCHEDULE
7 a.m. Wake up
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TIM MORAN Senior, mechanical engineering
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Graphic by Hannah Wise
ing on the Formula-style cars for Jayhawk Motorsports with his teammates Tim Moran ay, so spending long hours in the shop and frequently pulling all-nighters became
A note taped up in the shop reads: "Erin Brown is the best thing that ever happened to me." Brown is Heger's fiancée. "We don't see each other a whole lot. We get in fights sometimes about it, but I keep telling her it's almost over. I've been telling her that since September. Now it's really almost over!" Heger said, laughing. Heger plans to graduate in May, and the two are set to be married in October.
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