Written by Louis Nguyen | September 8, 2024
The biggest misconception that most people have before entering a graduate program is that it’s just going to be college 2.0. (At least, in the sense that classes are your life, everyone wants to be friends, and you’re gonna be broke all the time but in an aesthetically pleasing way.) But then you get to grad school, and you’re like, wait, why do classes feel a bit… secondary? There is not a single random whimsical class designed for intellectual expansion. Instead, everything you take feels like a supplement to a professional goal. Also, everyone is so busy with their personal ventures it can make you feel the pressure to also be busy too? On top of that, you’re now at the age where being broke is just… kinda ugly. So you either decide to stay at your job, or you look for one, or even multiple.
Now you’re in grad school, and you’re working. Twice a week, you rush across town between commitments with a quick 5:30 PM in-car cold sandwich. Every single break you have is crammed with school tasks on top of your daily emails, spreadsheets, meetings, and reports. Your weekends are a silly game where you’re a cat and you’re chasing a family of mice. Father mouse – laundry, mother mouse – grocery, sister mouse – homework, brother mouse – WORK work, cousin mice – the two friends that you got on your calendar this weekend. Three months passed, and it’s time for a group project. You want to start a cage match with your groupmates because why is it impossible to schedule a meeting? Until you realize everybody is a cat, and everybody is chasing a clan of mice.
This has been my experience holding down employment while powering through a graduate program. I’ve also observed in my peers this overarching pressure of stress and pressure to stress. There’s no universal advice that I can give to combat this because every graduate program is different, and every job / career path is different. But below are some things that has helped me keep my sanity while getting things done:
1. Break Tasks Down
Every week, there’s a new and updated to-do list that is daunting just to think about. And sometimes, because the number of tasks feels so overwhelming, I procrastinate starting on anything, resulting in me just lying on the couch doing nothing but dread. But it doesn’t have to be this way! I realized that the feeling of being overwhelmed is something that I can tackle internally, and I do so in three steps: 1) assessing deadlines, 2) breaking tasks down into manageable chunks, and 3) setting specific goals. Maybe for an essay that’s due on Friday, by 5 PM Monday I’ll get an outline done, and by 9 PM on Tuesday, I can have the first three pages written. Mentally, to me, little chunks always feel more manageable than one big daunting thing to complete.
2. Sleep! Eat!
I was definitely an overachiever in college, and being in grad school means being among other overachievers which just amplifies this feeling of: “I need to do more.” But after sitting in the pressure cooker of overcommitting for an alarming length of time, I realized that to bring my best self to my commitments, I need to set boundaries with work to firstly ensure my health. I’m not at an age anymore where pulling an all-nighter is something to be bragged about. It’s a little embarrassing honestly, so sometimes, I just have to close that laptop and get in bed. I have to remind myself that 99% of things can wait, and as long as I properly communicate my capacity, people will almost always understand. Alongside sleep, I also realized that eating well and exercising are also major priorities that are required for me to do my best work, academically or professionally. These human activities should not be viewed as mere survival, but they must be prioritized because if these things fail, everything in life will quite literally crumble.
3. Enjoy Grad School
This may sound corny, but remembering to revel in the whimsy of being a student again has helped me so much in not succumbing to the pressure to achieve. Having a job (or multiple) is exhausting, so the easiest thing to do is just zone out, talk to nobody, half-ass my assignments, and online shop through lectures. That used to be my default, but I realized that, by doing so, I was literally wasting my time and money. I realized that there’s beauty in being in a school environment where everything is a little lower stakes, so I feel more empowered to make riskier and more creative choices in my assignments. I also realized that there’s hardly any other places where community feels as immediate. Where else would I be able to hop in many quirky hobby clubs with no expectations? Where else would I be able to stumble into cool events every single day? Where else would I be able to take a nap on a grass lawn and wake up with my stuff not stolen? So I’m enjoying it.
There’s more to life than work, and there’s more to grad school than professional advancement. It may not feel like college 2.0, but it does not need to be drab and stressful either. With a little bit of time management skills and a lot of willpower to prioritize self-care, I’m at a point now where I’m very much enjoying the ride. Hope you can do the same!