ISSUE 7 / STUDENT AFFAIRS / EDITORIAL

The Sinister Undertones of an Exam Breakfast.

Sometime in the haze of exam season, I arose at 7am and trudged with my flatmates through the dark to Haere-roa for Exam Breakfast. We arrived 20 minutes before serving time to find a queue snaking almost out the door. We were some of the last to get our breakfasts, while numerous others behind us missed out. My flatmates were regulars, and did not remark on the line of sullen-looking students. As a fist timer, however, I was taken aback. I immediately could sense a sinister undertone to the free exam breakfast. On its own, it appears an innocuous, even a tasty start to the day. Yet, I could not shake the feeling that this breakfast was emblematic of something more worrying.

The free breakfasts offered throughout study season are a symptom of an increasingly toxic study culture amongst students. “Toxic productivity” describes the intense pressure to remain productive, often to the point of seeking an output level beyond one’s physical and psychological constraints, ultimately harming one’s wellbeing. To many students, it manifests as that sick feeling of guilt that arises whenever they step away from a practice paper for a much-needed break. It is this productivity style that demands studying from the crack of dawn, for example.

A study published earlier this year identified an increasing prevalence of this culture of productivity in our academic institutions. It notes that it is no longer described as an individual’s condition, instead it is increasingly recognised as an institutionally reproduced condition embedded within our tertiary education systems globally. Researchers from Jenderal Soedirman University in Indonesia argue that universities themselves contribute to this culture through structures and incentives that reward excessive productivity and constant performance. 

Instead of advocating for a re-evaluation of the practices that encourage unhealthy study habits, the UCSA directs its resources towards free breakfasts. In doing so, it is legitimising toxic productivity rather than challenging the university to encourage a healthier balance between life and study. Universities are uniquely positioned to structure learning that promotes sustainable study habits and student wellbeing through the ways they reward student achievement. A bacon and egg muffin, while tasty, fails to address the deeper issues at play. 

Moreover, it is representative of a broader trend: an increasing use of wellness amenities to enforce flawed systems. In their book, The Wellness Syndrome, Carl Cederström and André Spicer argue that wellness has become the responsibility of the individual. As a result, an inability to maintain wellbeing is treated as a personal failure, rather than the consequence of a flawed system. Exam breakfasts may appear to improve a student’s chances of coping within a demanding system. However, when they are provided by institutions embedded within that system, they can function as a way of legitimising inaction on more meaningful reforms to student wellbeing. Under this logic, a student's wellbeing during exams becomes their responsibility to manage, rather than a reflection of the pressures imposed by the university itself. 

The UCSA should not legitimise a system that harms those it represents, it should challenge and reform it. A free breakfast is appreciated, but we should ask why so many students feel compelled to queue in the dark for food that helps them endure a period of intense stress in the first place. If student wellbeing is genuinely a priority, then the conversation must move beyond wellness initiatives and towards the structures that make those initiatives seem necessary. Otherwise, the exam breakfast risks becoming more than a free meal. Under our current system, it is a symbol of our willingness to reinforce an unhealthy academic culture that sees students starting their study at dawn. Meanwhile, the UCSA leaves its causes untouched.

- Eser Armstrong

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