2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Academic resource use is a key determinant of student performance [1]. High-achieving students demonstrate self-regulated learning by consistently engaging with academic resources [2]. In response, universities have expanded the variety of academic resources available to students [3]. But personal [4], social[5], and institutional [6] barriers influence student help-seeking behaviors and can hinder effective resource use.

The literature documents the incidence of reduced help-seeking behaviors, especially among underrepresented engineering students [7]. Given the importance of help-seeking in student development, lowering barriers to resource engagement is crucial to diversifying the engineering field [8], [9]. Researchers have documented expedient help-seeking behavior in engineering departments, where students search for the answer to an assignment at the cost of deeply learning the materials [10].

This qualitative study provides insight into the institutional and personal pressure students feel to engage in hustle culture— the pressure to be constantly busy, leading to over-commitment to professional, academic, and personal activities—and the impact hustle culture has on how they interact with resources. At a mid-sized private R1 university, our research team interviewed twenty engineering students who completed the first-year engineering program. In these interviews, students were asked to reflect on their transition to college and the accessibility of academic resources during their first year. These interviews are the first phase of a design research project to develop tools and systems to enhance academic resource engagement among engineering students.

Thematic analysis revealed that hustle culture negatively impacts student engagement and limits access to quality academic resources. While we use the term hustle culture to describe a culture of overcommitment, we acknowledge “productivity culture,” [11]“stress culture,” [12] or “burnout” [13] as related terms and potential outcomes of the hustle culture described in this study.

Our study has three aims: (1) to explore how institutional culture influences student transitions from high school to college; (2) to raise awareness of the detrimental effects of hustle culture in engineering programs; and (3) to highlight the importance of centering student perspectives in the design of new academic tools.

The study addresses the following research question: What barriers and incentives shape student resource use?

To ensure methodological rigor, interview transcripts were imported into Dedoose, a qualitative data analysis tool [14]. Transcripts were coded using an a priori framework developed from the research question and knowledge of existing frameworks [15]. After referencing the data, the definitions for the codes were refined as needed. Gayoung Kim, the primary researcher and a junior in the Industrial Engineering department, conducted multiple rounds of interrater reliability testing with her mentor, Dr. Chamille Lescott, to ensure consistent coding [16]. The resulting codes were categorized to identify themes and broader insights [17]. Direct quotes were selected to illustrate core findings.
We present these findings and offer a guide for conducting research and designing tools with and for students.

Our analysis suggests that hustle culture, endemic at the institution, fosters overcommitment, driving students to select resources based on accessibility and alignment with their other obligations. Notably, students highlighted the collaborative nature of the institution and the value of peer support. In this collaborative academic environment, students are hesitant to adopt resources not widely endorsed by peers, which both poses a challenge and presents an opportunity to faculty and staff who want to promote new resources. Because students are excessively busy, they demonstrate negative expedient help-seeking behaviors by prioritizing immediate assignments over long-term learning. Though students recognize faculty as being high-quality resources, feeling intimidated by professors and inconvenient office hours times often push students away from engaging with faculty.

The student participants suggested several institutional changes to improve resource engagement, such as using peer leaders to communicate about resources, consolidating resource information, and offering guidance on how to use available resources. In an environment where students commit to many activities and are self-reportedly time-poor, these recommendations highlight the need for accessible, high-quality academic support.

We encourage institutions to consider how top-down cultural drivers and individual student mindsets impact help-seeking as faculty and staff work to design new resources. Hustle culture, which is driven by a need to achieve and be “productive,” is pervasive in academic [18], [19] and professional settings [20] and is linked to burnout and declining mental health [21]. This study raises awareness of how hustle culture affects students’ learning experiences and paves the way for future research into its influence on engineering students' mental health and overall college experiences.

*This work received an "exempt from continuing oversight" determination by the authors' institutional IRB.