Hello, my name is Eric and I am an academic pack rat.
It's kind of strange because I'm not really a pack rat in general. In my room I've managed to strike a fairly reasonable balance between vacuous cleanliness and insect infestation. I keep most of my receipts, but I'm perfectly capable of throwing things out when I no longer need them and they can't be reused. However, when it comes to academics, things are different.
When I leave my room to go to class, I have this compulsive desire to haul along every book I could possibly need to work on any of my current assignments. I know that in the hour between my last class of the morning and lunch I won't have enough time to finish a physics problem set, finance reading and an entire book that I'm reading for my thesis, yet I somehow end up taking all this and more with me!
My book-hauling compulsion has a complement in my obsessive desire to not waste any moment of the day. Even when I have a mere five minutes before a lecture starts, I will inevitably pull out some reading to try to be productive. The irony is that the resulting stop-and-go pace of my reading might actually make my time less productive.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a genuine medical problem for many people, and in no way do I mean to trivialize the difficulties of such individuals. Even though I'm fairly certain that I don't have OCD, I can't help wondering whether intense, self-imposed pressure to excel leads to mildly OCD-like symptoms for many students. The good thing — or bad, depending on how you look at it — is that some of the people I am close to on campus share my mildly obsessive mindset and compulsive behavior. Several people I've talked to say they tend to be academic pack rats as well. Despite their weight, or perhaps because of it, there is something comforting about having all those books with you. It makes you feel like you are really doing something serious with your time, which is again a good thing or a bad thing depending on how you look at it.
It is important that students realize the seriousness of their purpose here — it would certainly make their parents feel better about spending an amount greater than the average U.S. per capita income on tuition. However, we all need to take a break sometimes.
If only striking a balance between order and chaos in work and play were as effortless as it is in housekeeping. Eric Harkleroad is a physics major from Overland Park, Kan. He can be reached at eharkler@princeton.edu.
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