Network! Internships! Connections! Research! When will we all admit fatigue? 

The ‘LinkedIn-ification’ of the university experience, especially at an institution as prestigious as U of T, has shifted the emphasis on “university experience” from “university” to “experience” — and not in a good way. 

While I do believe it is important to gain vocational skills and connections on campus, we need to take a step back and reevaluate how and why we build ourselves not just as people, but as brands. 

I believe the ever-growing emphasis on premature professionalization at the expense of genuine self-expression prevents us from forging meaningful connections and representing our true selves when we engage in academic and professional opportunities. However, professionalism does not require impersonality. 

The plague of inauthenticity

Joining clubs and finding opportunities to share and engage in our passions with like-minded peers is a fantastic way to foster friendship and connect with each other and the campus. 

What I oppose is viewing extracurriculars as merely a means to an end. Joining clubs solely to add bullet points to our résumés has become common among university students, reflecting the inauthenticity we use to navigate an institution with rigorous expectations.

There is nothing inherently malicious about joining a club to boost your résumé or connections. However, the frequency of this raises the question: how meaningful do these clubs become when they are filled with students who don’t actually have a passion for their objectives? 

The same logic applies to professional connection-building. On more than one occasion I have heard professors woefully ask that students at least try to form some kind of genuine connection with them before mauling them with requests for letters of recommendation or spots in their research labs. 

I think many people attend not only networking nights but even office hours with just one thing on their minds: professional advancement. We want so badly to develop, progress, and brand ourselves as experienced and knowledgeable that, in our pursuits, we become monotonous encyclopedias. We say what we think our superiors and peers want to hear, trying to appear academic and refined — ultimately extinguishing all personality from our self-presentation.

Time is money

From a labour or employment perspective, we trade our time and productivity for monetary compensation. But social connections — specifically in a university setting — shouldn’t employ the same transactional premise. 

I see this phenomenon of transactional social interactions translating directly to the university realm, where we speed through homework, duck out of lectures and tutorials as soon as possible, and weave in and out of crowds of our peers. We’re always racing toward the next thing on our schedules, never taking the time to be present in one place without worrying about what’s next.

This inability to stop looking ahead, along with our habit of trying to map out our futures as early as possible, might stem from the deteriorating economic climate. The COVID-19 pandemic marked a turning point for Canada’s economy. Soaring housing costs, challenging rental markets, unprecedented inflation, and shrinking job markets are some of the most prominent features of the current economic landscape, all of which were exacerbated by the pandemic. 

This could explain why we do everything we can to prepare ahead, as university students standing on the precipice of post-graduation in this daunting economy. We feel compelled to be relentless in our pursuit of financial stability, and this pursuit practically forces us to make everything in our academic lives transactional. 

When money is our lifeblood, transactions become our means of survival. 

Conversations with professors, attendance at office hours, membership in clubs and activities, and constantly updating our LinkedIn profiles have become rungs on the pre-corporate ladder of university institutions. They seem to suck us in, mould our minds, and pump us out on a conveyor belt — scattering us to the various professional niches for which we spend our long undergraduate years rigorously preparing.

Taking a step back

LinkedIn is not the pinnacle of academic or professional achievement; it is merely a social media outlet. Like Instagram and TikTok, we can just scroll away. 

So, how do we deconstruct the ‘LinkedIn-ification’ of the university experience? How do we stop feeling immense social pressures, obsessively comparing ourselves based on our academic achievements, and trying to curate ourselves as brands on LinkedIn rather than as university students — or as people? 

I think it starts with actively delinking impersonal professionalism from academic advancement. We don’t need to attend every networking night or be involved in every club, and we don’t have to curb our personalities or self-expression when we engage in these events and with our peers. 

In deconstructing the LinkedIn-ification of universities, we can unlearn our habits of repressive self-expression and obsessive opportunism. 

Shontia Sanders is a third-year student at St. Michael’s College studying political science. She is an associate Opinion editor for The Varsity, and an associate editor for POLIS.