Introduction
Hello everyone, and welcome to the next post in Making my Mark! This post came out a little more raw than anticipated, but it will go through a few difficult decisions that I recently made. Without further ado, this is The road less traveled.
This past semester, I made the difficult decision to withdraw from my PhD in Economics. The primary reason was for my mental well being. This is not common. The decision required a lot of thought and self acceptance. In addition to taking a break from my studies, I also made the less common decision to return to the service industry. The service industry (including this current position) is difficult for me, and I will get a little more into why that is in this post. Overall, this post will describe why I took a break from my PhD studies and why I reentered the service industry. As always, I’ll conclude with some general musings.
Something was off
Low motivation has been a chronic struggle for me, but my motivation plummeted even further over the course of this past year. For the first time in my academic career, I just wasn’t doing my assignments or putting in a good faith effort. I was consistently failing. In fact, this past semester I received my lowest exam grade ever. 22%. Why am I sharing that detail? Vulnerability. This blog is all about openness, honesty, and transparency. I will share relevant details for context. I will also share details like this to let others know that these things happen. It also provides an opportunity to share a lesson that I’ve learned. One of my past professors made a tremendous point about exams. They are an important part of academia. However, they are not life and death. An exam is not a referendum on one’s intelligence. There are so many factors that could explain a low exam score; for example someone might just be having a bad day (or week, etc.). In addition to low motivation, I was also experiencing increased anxiety and a lack of satisfaction. These feelings became so prevalent that I decided a leave of absence was the best course of action to take.
This was not an easy decision. It definitely reinforced my internal feelings of being a failure. It also reinforced my feelings of lacking intelligence. These internal beliefs have deep rooted causes, and are currently beyond the scope of this post. However, at some point in the future I will delve into possible reasons why I developed these beliefs. In any event, I had to fight against these beliefs. Essentially, I had to give myself permission to take leave for mental health reasons. I had tried to convince myself that I could “tough it out,” and that things would get better. However, it became clear that this was not the case. Further, “toughing it out” is not a philosophy I generally subscribe to. At Least not in the traditional sense.
Learning about alignment
I am not an expert in alignment. In fact, I would like to learn more about what it means to live in alignment. I plan to read about and discuss the subject in the coming months. However, for now, alignment can simply be thought of as its dictionary definition. This program was not in alignment with what I wanted out of life. Economics is certainly an interesting subject. However, math is not my strong suit. Graduate studies in economics is math intensive. In fact, it is almost like studying applied mathematics. The lectures were math intensive, often involving multivariate calculus. This is not my strength. I was able to get decent grades in my grade school math courses (for the most part), but I never really excelled in math. I knew all of this going into the program. I had again tried to convince myself that I could push through and enjoy it. It was not all “doom and gloom” though.
However, there were certainly parts of the program that were in alignment for me. I really enjoyed getting to work as a teaching assistant (TA). I love getting to help students and design activities that facilitate growth and learning for others. I enjoyed it so much that I even tried to keep my TA position, even though I was withdrawing from studies. I knew that this was extremely unlikely. However, it never hurts to ask.
Further, wanting to work in a college setting was my primary motivator for enrolling in a PhD program. Thus, I really believe that further studies are in alignment for me. It is just about finding the right fit. Presumably, this will be something less mathematical. Overall, I am grateful to have gotten a semester of TA experience and this definitely felt in alignment for me.
Returning to the service industry
In addition to taking a break from studies, I also returned to the food service industry. There were several reasons for this. One is practicality. DC is one of the most expensive cities in the country. I was able to secure this job relatively quickly, and that meant less time with no income. It is also a hybrid wage and tip compensation model. Therefore, the earning potential is higher than a standard wage model. In addition to income, there were several ancillary benefits to taking this position.
As I discussed in my intro, I am working on my social skills and relationship development. All jobs require social skills; however, a job in the food service industry requires additional levels of socialization with coworkers and customers. My hope is to improve my social skills while in this position. Furthermore, having a job also gets me out of my apartment. I am prone to isolation and avoidance. These get worse when I have less commitments. Having the structure of a job forces me to go out and be active. I am also hoping for inertia. That is, I am hoping that some activity will lead to even more activity.
Now that I have discussed the benefits, it is worthwhile to discuss the apprehension that I had (and still have). Some of the apprehension is related to my previous experiences in the service industry. In short, I have struggled there in the past. It might be worthwhile to discuss these struggles in more depth in another post, but for now I’ll just say that these positions are typically not the best suited to my strengths.
In addition to my past work history playing a role, some of it is also stigma related. I have a masters degree. In economic jargon, this means I satisfy the definition of underemployment. I am not much of one for status symbols, but I'd be lying if I said this did not enter my mind in the thought process. However, there is absolutely nothing wrong with working in the service industry especially if one enjoys it and feels fulfilled by it. For me though, this job is more of a stopgap position. As previously mentioned, it is not best suited to my strengths.
In sum, this is only a short term job for me. It is not permanent (very few things in life are really). I am going to take steps to determine what I want moving forward. In the meantime, I can learn a lot from this position while also helping to make ends meet financially.
General musings and conclusion
In the past year, I made a decision to both start and to subsequently stop studying in an economics PhD program. Both decisions required thought. Obviously, studying in the PhD program did not go as I had hoped. Sometimes things do not work out as planned, and that is okay. I think the main takeaway from this post is that many things in life are not permanent. For example, graduate studies. It is not compulsory to finish a program, even if the vast majority of students that enroll do, it is okay to change your mind. It really is. You have to do what feels right.
The current state that I am in is not permanent either. I have a different vision in mind for the future. I do truly believe that more school is a part of that. Working with college students is rewarding, and the best path to get there is through additional education. It is just about finding the program (and subject) that allows me to live in alignment.
There is much more coming down the pike for Making my Mark. I will be talking about myriad topics related to my personal growth, and these include my love languages, my results from psychological testing, experiences (travels, school, etc.), and much more. Thank you for reading, and I hope that you’ll continue to follow my journey.
Let's end on a positive note. The below meme is one of my all time favorites. I have shared it with many friends and coworkers. I am not associated with the Coach Campaign in any capacity, but I love the message and of course kittens are awesome!