I read your comment as a joke, but it hints at a serious matter. I'm a TA at TAU EE, and my students really don't have enough time to sleep. Every deadline is a mix of mails begging for an extra day, and submissions at 5 AM. Talking with my students, it appears this is a faculty-wide problem - the coursework is simply too much (and this isn't simply students whining - in 4 years in CS/math I didn't hear of a single person cramming through the night for a deadline, something here is very different). I hear Technion is the same, for CS too.
Now, you take young people, pressurize them to excel or it will have lasting effects on their career, and deprive them of sleep. No wonder people have mental difficulties - it's actually a wonder this doesn't appear to happen here. Maybe it's a bit more maturity coming from the army service.
>I read your comment as a joke, but it hints at a serious matter.
I meant that comment as "ha ha, only serious".
>I'm a TA at TAU EE, and my students really don't have enough time to sleep. Every deadline is a mix of mails begging for an extra day, and submissions at 5 AM. Talking with my students, it appears this is a faculty-wide problem - the coursework is simply too much (and this isn't simply students whining - in 4 years in CS/math I didn't hear of a single person cramming through the night for a deadline, something here is very different). I hear Technion is the same, for CS too.
Technion is very definitely the same, in both CS and EE. I have never seen such overconsumption of coffee and energy drinks in my life as I have seen here. Worst part is that the professors consider this a normal, positive component of university-level education: they seem to believe that sleep and sanity are for the weak.
When I did my undergrad at UMass Amherst, "all-nighters" (or "white nights" as we say here in Israel) were extremely rare. Only the most difficult courses and the heaviest courseloads actually imposed them on you. Here at Technion, they're a regular affair for anyone taking courses, and occasionally for grad-students and professors too.
>Now, you take young people, pressurize them to excel or it will have lasting effects on their career, and deprive them of sleep. No wonder people have mental difficulties
Bingo.
>it's actually a wonder this doesn't appear to happen here. Maybe it's a bit more maturity coming from the army service.
As far as I can tell, it's not exactly maturity from the army. I would just call it inhumanity from the army. Technion's culture was formed from former soldiers who, given a workload to do, simply sat for six hours and did it, without pausing to stand, walk around, go the bathroom, check the internet, eat, drink, any of it. You can call this "discipline", but to do so makes it sound like a good thing.
My other guess is simply that it does happen here. I was chatting with a couple of other grad-level students in Technion's on-campus pub here last night, and telling them how when I was young I was forbidden to apply to MIT by my parents because of the suicide rate. They told me that Technion is also known for its suicide rate.
If Technion, at least, has a suicide problem, then we can't claim the mental problems deriving from high-pressure overwork are not happening here.
Thank you for the thoughtful response. To be honest, up till now I haven't heard of a suicide problem at MIT, Technion or TAU, but I wasn't exactly at the right circles anyway.
I wonder why doesn't the student body (here or at your place) rebel against this. At times I really want to grab one of the student representatives and suggest they do, but I know this will be the quick death of my academic career (not that chances are good as it is :-)
For example, here at the Technion...