My first day at Georgia Institute of Technology feels like a lifetime ago, yet it was only January of last year. Must be the effect 2020 has had on many of us.
I was pretty excited to be starting a new chapter and was looking forward to the new challenges; if only I had known what those challenges would be like. Not that I’m complaining. Doing a masters degree has taught me a lot about resilience, time management; practice and patience. I got through the first year okay. A few mental and emotional scrapes and bruises but fine nonetheless.
With half the energy I had at the beginning of 2020, I started 2021. I had to split my time between improving my programming skills as I was looking for new a job, my full-time job and school which by the way felt full-time despite being an online student. That was the beginning of my journey down the deep dark hole of burnout. But everything I was doing was important, right? That was the argument I’d use to convince myself to keep going despite how I was starting to get affected.
A masters in Computer Science is INTENSE. 90% of the concepts are new, some programming languages you may or may not have used before; there are assignments every single week; quizzes, and exams. Oh, and a tone of notes and lecture videos to get done. I only had nights and sometimes weekends to do all that. Added to my day job and practise sessions, it wasn’t nearly enough. Did I also mention that you had to maintain a good GPA?
I kept telling myself that after I got a new job; I’d have the time to take a break. Well, I did get a new job and no, things didn’t become better, they became worse!
I use C#, C++ and XAML for work. These are languages I have never interacted with prior to working at Microsoft. That basically means that I have to use the extra time to learn and practice these languages alongside my tasks. Being surrounded by really good engineers, I obviously did not want to be the odd one out and perform less than average. So I put a lot of time and effort into learning all the required stacks. On the other hand, I had a really hard class at school which equally needed effort, if not more. Not only was my mental state going on the negative but both school and work were at the risk of failing. I was under-performing in both and it was only going to get worse.
When you hit rock bottom the only way to go is up.
After weighing my options and looking at all possible outcomes I decided to put school on hold and withdraw from my current semester at the time. Why didn’t I do that earlier, before reaching my breaking point which I had seen coming a mile away? Fear.
My biggest fear about making that decision was what my family was going to think; my grandmother especially who was so proud of me when I started. Someone reminded me that I was the one at risk of failing and not them. Whether or not they were going to be disappointed shouldn’t influence the decision of taking care of myself. That was an unfounded fear because when I explained my situation to her, she told me she preferred me to be okay mentally and at work instead of burnt out and depressed; a masters degree or not. I just have the coolest grandma ever.
I did not get to this decision lightly because a part of me would have wanted to continue but the circumstances currently are not ideal. I do intend to pick up where I left off after I’m comfortable enough at work but for now using all my time and effort to grow in my work environment.
