Not the OP, but there’s another poster in this whole thread who says that he studied “16 hours per day” and that his former college mates, much gifted than him but who hadn’t studied as much, now live “mediocre” lives.

Which is to say that this is the competition that lots of people who study in a professional environment (i.e. not for fun) have to grapple with, I feel sorry for them because I don’t see an easy solution for all this madness (because it is definitely madness to study 12-16 hours per day).

In high school I could sleep well AND ace everything. I didn't have to study that much to ace honors and AP courses.

Partially because I aced everything, I got into one of the universities considered "top". Although I was excited about the research part, I quickly found out that many courses were hard af. I had to study 12+ hours a day to get good grades there. I did get good grades after the initial shock, but it was hard, I slept very little, and I fucked up my health doing it, without realizing it at first.

Tech companies I have worked at, including the one I just left, routinely don't give you the option to work 8 hours. It's either you work 12+ hours to meet performance expectations or they ask you to leave. My body, unfortunately, cannot tolerate that and "needing to work normal hours" isn't generally one of the available disability accommodations.