You’ll probably see these students at the library in 3 hours
It’s the Michigan motto, or so we say. In actuality, it’s the mentality virtually every college claims to have, whether it is Colgate University or MIT. The “work hard, play hard” lifestyle is clearly very prevalent in college and students should expect to do both in order to get the most out of their time here. From what I’ve seen, the experience of a typical U of M student is built on this understanding and falls in perfectly with Suits’ Death of the Grasshopper, as well as Giamatti’s Take Time for Paradise.
These two books essentially state that we do work so that we can be free; we must have both labor and leisure in order to live a meaningful life. Whether it’s finishing homework on Thursday so that they can go out on Friday, or completing a project early so that they can spend time with their friends that are visiting, students have to get their work done in order to have the freedom to do what they want. However, they cannot neglect their work because without it, there would be no purpose of being in college, where the main objective is supposed to be learning.
In Death of a Grasshopper, Suits gives readers an image of utopia in which all work is play; a carpenter builds houses not for the reward of having a house, but for the intrinsic value of the action itself. This utopia, however, is not attainable, as a world that is all play would be meaningless. According to Suits, even if utopia was achieved, eventually, the inhabitants would realize that if their lives are merely games, they weren’t worth living, and the separation of work and play would once again occur. Although some may be cynical about the turn of events in this situation, I believe that it would definitely occur if a college student were to only play as well. If one only wanted to go out to parties all of the time and not do work, I think that he/she would eventually get tired of this lifestyle; after all, even Robert Downey Jr. calmed down after a while. I know that if I were to only play, I would eventually feel unfulfilled because there would be nothing serious that actually mattered in my life and I know that many students my age share the same feeling, as proven by twitter over summer break.
Just as Suits talks about Utopia in his work, Giamatti similarly talks of paradise. According to Giamatti, spectators follow sports, which convert work into leisure and freedom, in order to get a taste of paradise – to just for a moment, know what the gods know. He also states,”if there is a truly religious quality to sport, then, it lies first in the intensity of devotion brought by the true believer, or fan.” Although I am not a huge fan of sports, many of my fellow students are and I can testify that Giamatti’s words apply to Michigan fans. The excitement of every touchdown, the frustration of every interception, and even the huge protest about Dave Brandon all show how invested the students are in the athletics here at the university. Not only that, but the fact that spectators stand outside for hours in the freezing cold to watch a football game, even when we’re losing, just shows the dedication of the true believer to the sport.
The Diag: the historic site of the “Fire Brandon” protest
There is no doubt that the words of Giamatti and Suits are applicable to the lives of the students here at the University of Michigan. We are living proof that these works, written decades ago, hold at least some truth to them and are still relevant. Yet, there are also some alarming implications about the fact that work and play must exist together. If they cannot be one and the same, as they are in utopia, the universal goal of finding a job that gives you intrinsic value is questioned: if we find a job we love, won’t that mean work becomes play? Will we begin to view life as meaningless as they did in Death of The Grasshopper?
Touchdown Theory 
I agree with you that college students do work to have the freedom to have fun. Being in such an academic institution that the students know this really impacts the way students spend their days. Personally, in high school, it was a very different feel. I would save work for after doing things considered as play, but now in college, with set deadlines and increasing workload, my work must be done before I can even think about play. This is not only applicable to students, it also should be a motto that all of society lives by, because that is how we will succeed as a people and become more productive.
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This is a very interesting piece of writing. I agree with zbsherma that it should be a motto in life that people should do work first than play to achieve success. As a mother and student I have learned this lesson from every day experience and now trying to teach my kids. I don’t think we will begin to view life as meaningless as they did in Death of The Grasshopper, after finding a job we love because there will be other responsibilities and duties to do in life. Finding a job is just one responsibility !!!!!!!!!
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I agree that the college lifestyle would be nothing without the actual ‘work’ portion. Although students continue to joke about only wanting to go to college for the ‘play’ part, the ‘work’ part is necessary in order to achieve a sense of accomplishment. Imagine the process of constructing a 10 page paper: sleepless nights, a number of drafts, and a large amount of frustration. However, when your final draft is finally polished, your sense of worth cannot even compare to that party you went to last weekend. To answer your final question, I believe that work will never entirely disappear, for within each job or essay or task comes a series of painstaking activities that couldn’t be regarded as play.
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