Hermione Granger Syndrome; Are you a secret sufferer?

I hope you all heard the news!

If you’re not sure what I’m talking about – then let me tell you. ANU is now ranked as the seventh best university in the world for international connections. This positions the university right in between Oxford and Cambridge – can you believe it? It means that ANU has connections and a reputation that situates it as an established academic institution – an amazing success for such a young university.

This is especially impressive considering that five universities in Australia are featured in the top twenty universities per global connections in the world. ANU is also featured in the top 25 best academic universities in the world, It is such an amazing achievement for such a small country (population wise at least).

The onset of this condition is often a surprise
to many sufferers

However, in acknowledgement of ANU’s growing academic success, I thought I’d discuss the growing trend towards Hermione Granger Syndrome.

For those of you who don’t understand the reference (Where have you been living!?) Hermione Granger is a character from Harry Potter. Gifted with incredible intelligence and often referred to as ‘the greatest witch of her time’ it’s understandable that Hermione knows a lot of things. She is a voracious reader and has an uncanny ability to apply theory to practical reality – an undervalued trait.

Unfortunately, her social life is small, mostly because she is a major know it all. This syndrome usually manifests in four ways.

1.      You cannot stop thinking about studying

This syndrome often begins with a slight attachment to stationary. It’s beautiful, attractive, mostly affordable and it makes everything look great. Most people would sympathize with this attachment, so I wouldn’t be too worried if this is all that you suffer from. But beware, because as this syndrome develops you’ll find social media tags like ‘studyspo, study motivation, studyblr’ and your time will be consumed with images of notes, books, textbooks and schedules – nothing will be prettier than study notes to you.

It seems ridiculous when you look back on this phenomenon from the outside – but trust me the addiction comes quickly. Before you know it the idea of looking up any other kind of image is pointless. What’s prettier than a cute font and some midliner coloring? Who even cares about yoga when there’s annotated textbooks? Certainly, not the sufferer of Hermione Granger Syndrome.

This terrible affliction will even extend to your daily activities. You’ll be exercising because it improves your focus while you study, you’ll be eating healthy to fuel your brain for study and your room will be tidy because that channels better studying. 

2.      You can’t stop trying to teach others

Of course, this syndrome is like many others – it’s contagious. It’s bad at being contagious, but the syndrome definitely attempts to spread. Once you reach the second stage of this syndrome you’ll find yourself attempting to drag others along to your late night ‘study with me live’ binges on Instagram. You’ll probably even buy others nice stationary to help get them started on their pathway to doom.

As you reach midway in this syndrome’s progression, those in the milder stages will turn to you for help. You’ll find yourself teaching how to add in those finer details to keep your study pages looking prim and proper – not to mention you’ll keep your notes in folders – they’re not good notes unless they’re looking clean and crisp!

In the depth of this syndrome I once found myself bringing a textbook to a friend’s house and attempting to show her how she really should be trying to annotate her textbook before an exam. Much to my dismay she appeared immune to this disease and continued watching the television series before her.

3.      Your goals are ridiculously high

The mental challenges with this syndrome are greater than a new desire to learn a foreign language or conquer the lesser known fallacies of the theory of relativity. Instead you will find yourself attempting to single handedly break a record for grades that never even existed.

It sounds bad…but I once had a goal to receive 46/42 on the LNAT. The LNAT stands for Law National Admissions Testing and is rumored to be one of the hardest tests for admission. Despite being out of 42 the average grade usually sits somewhere around 18, with some people receiving results as low as 6. A score of 30 or above is exceptional and can land you an interview at many Ivy League Universities.

I wasn't very happy to see I'd missed
 out on such a little goal

So where did the goal of 46 come from? There’s a legend that one boy got 43/42 although looking through the internet I couldn’t find proof of this. However, at the time I believed it to be possible and so I aimed for 46 instead of 42. You wouldn’t believe my disappointment when I missed out on getting 46. It was as if I’d somehow failed at a basic task.

Luckily, I had several non-sufferers to remind me that not achieving impossible goals was not the end to my academic career.

The syndrome often develops in groups, which makes it harder to identify. For example, I was surrounded by beautiful, intelligent people for the majority of my high school years. I was also lucky enough to be allowed to attend Adelaide University from the age of sixteen – which meant I was introduced to an entirely new level of academia.

Of course, it wasn’t enough. I was disappointed because I had not beaten the academic achievements my greatest role model, Lord Denning.

Lord Denning began university at fourteen where he completed a mathematics degree on scholarship before he eventually continued on to a law degree and then became the famous judge that we all know and love. Denning’s easy going sense of humor drew many to the profession and for those who haven’t read any of his books – I’d have to recommend them to you, they’re legally humorous in ways you never anticipated.

That being said, I learned to live with the reality that I would never measure up to this legal hero – and now have determined that a far more attainable goal is to have more academic literature published than Amal Clooney.

4.      Unless an activity benefits your study, it’s not in your priority list

The final stage that the suffer will reach is that study will become the greatest achievement on
their list of daily tasks. If an activity doesn’t help them to reach their academic goal, then forget about it. Of course, some may argue that this is a productive lifestyle built towards propelling yourself into an advantageous and exciting career – I argue this is a very sad effect of Hermione Granger Syndrome.

For those of you who are fellow sufferers of this syndrome I invite you to join me on my Instagram every Tuesday night at 5 pm AEDT, for a live study and chat broadcast!