“I know there’s something else, I just can’t remember what,” says Weinberg freshman Vanessa Lee, racking her brain. She’s listing off the activities she’s involved in outside of class, and the number — still incomplete — has already reached six. Six! On top of classes, social life and being on the Exec Board of my Res College, six activities seems like far more than the average student might want.

Yet, the “average” student at Northwestern may not quite equate with the “average” student elsewhere. I posted a Facebook poll, and out of the 41 students who took the survey, more than half were involved in three or more activities. It wasn’t exactly a scientific poll or a significant sample, but it wouldn’t be hard to imagine the results holding true across campus.

“Nerdwestern” shirts aptly poke fun at the school’s overachieving ethic. The actors in this promo video probably don’t realize that their conversations too-scarily mirror actual tête-à-têtes students have, in completely non-academic contexts. Even with all things considered, a mildly shocked eyebrow-raise is in order. How does a person handle so much commitment without imploding? More importantly, is it really worth the stress?

SESP sophomore Malavika Srinivasan says she thinks that “Northwestern’s excess of opportunities” may drive students to commit to more than they might have otherwise. Srinivasan has been a member of Deevas (an on-campus Indian dance troupe) for two years, as well as serving on the Pan-Hellenic exec board and the finance boards of Delta Delta Delta, Student Activities and ASG. She also does research at Kellogg, and is finishing her term as 2010 class chair of the Northwestern Class Alliance. And it doesn’t end there: Srinivasan is also the co-chair of a student-run seminar out of the Communication Department dealing with the Northwestern Community Building initiative.

“There’s always something to start, something new to do,” Srinivasan says. “They mean it when they say if you don’t find a club you like, start it.”

Despite these and similar assertions by other peers — that the overwhelming opportunities NU offers further drive already-driven students to pile on an impressive load of extracurriculars — there remains the less admirable theory of ulterior motives. As a campus, Northwestern is like the moderately obese mother of all Gatorade ads: Students sweat purple-colored ambition from purple-clothed bodies. Students may very well be in a sort of unspoken race with each other to build resumes. But keeping up with mile-a-minute peers might, for many, seem impossible.

“I’m sure a lot of it is resume-building,” said Srinivasan, “but I think a lot of it is for the kind of personal satisfaction you gain. These four years are a lot more about personal growth — it’s less ‘oh am I going to get into a good college’ and more about me. A lot of people seem intensely committed because they want to be.” Through her extracurricular involvement, Srinivasan discovered her knack for finance-related activities, which she otherwise might not have pursued.

The whole point of extracurriculars, after all, is to find out which medium of soul-searching works best. And if that means not doing any extracurriculars at all, students should not feel pressured into involvement they have no real desire to do. For every extracurricular-chasing, overachieving student on campus, there has to be at least one person who spends evenings watching Ugly Betty and doodling on the corners of Calvin and Hobbes comics. But if the point of extracurriculars is for personal growth and interest, and there are no extracurriculars tickling that person’s fancy, he or she has nothing to be ashamed of.

If one’s after-class cathartic unwinding ritual is World of Warcraft, there’s no shame in that. Students should do what gives them the most satisfaction. And if that satisfaction is found in loading up on political activism and research opportunities, so be it. It just so happens that NU finds more happiness in taking on than cutting down.

[Clarification: The original article did not disclose that a source lived in the same dorm as the writer. North by Northwestern regrets the error.]