A burnout culture of "sleep is for the weak" must be stopped in design education for the sake of students' mental health say #DezeenChat participants.
This month, Dezeen asked our followers on Twitter and Instagram if design education is broken, and what could be done to fix it.
Readers highlighted a number of issues in the current higher education system that were proving barriers to entry or learning, including high course-fees, the cost of materials, and oversubscribed courses.
"I watched friends burn out and lose days to recovery"
The overwhelming complaint was of a culture of burnout, where students are instructed to work long hours and cut down on sleep, with no support offered for those who said they were struggling. "Some professors say that, as an architecture student, all-nighters should be common practice," said Instagram user Rafay Qazi, saying one professor told them "sleep is for the weak".
"I watched friends burn out and lose days to recovery, and this cannot continue," tweeted Scott McAulay, an architecture graduate of the University of Strathclyde in Scotland. "Suffering is no 'rite of passage'."

#dezeenchat I?ve had a professor say that we must pull all nighters for him because architecture school is a 24/7 job and that we can ?get a day job? when we graduate https://t.co/zHxeKetk6F
? elizabeth (@elizabethgrav1) July 4, 2019

Burnout, according to the recently updated definition from the World He...