Like Father, Like Son
If I’m really honest with myself, I’m not cut out for this part-time graduate school stuff. I have a great love for education and learning, and I really am interested in the stuff I’m studying in school. However, when I analyze the stuff I’ve involved myself with in the last few months, since re-starting graduate school, I’m not making class a priority. What is a priority? Honestly, it’s been work. I’ve missed more classes than I’ve made—I’m distance learning, so it’s not all for naught—which tells me that it’s just not that important to me. Given what we’re doing at work—which I can’t talk about, unfortunately, but I will link to appropriate press releases when the time comes—it will not be a priority for me anytime soon.
The last time I gave this a try, I found out that Dad had started work on a Ph.D. while he was running ROTC cadets around at Tennessee. At the time, I was flummoxed that Dad would drop an opportunity to work on a Ph.D.—a Ph.D., with someone else paying for it!—but I now find myself in his exact same shoes, almost 30 years later: stuck between personal growth through employer-supported education and devotion to craft and family.
Something that’s really bothered me the last four to six weeks is that I’ve been so worn out that I’ve not been able to make time for my friends … in one case, at a time when I really feel like one of them needs me. If there’s anything that’s more important to me than work, it’s the relationships I have in my life … and yet they have been suffering as well.
I do know this: if I do decide to drop school again after talking with my boss in the morning, I’m not going to give it a third try while working full-time; if I ever do graduate school, it will be as a full-time student. I was very, very good at the class-work-SGA trifecta when I was an undergraduate; I suck at it now. I only do any one of the three well at any time, and right now, I don’t feel like I do any of the three particularly well—although my esteem about my work is undoubtedly negatively affected by the malaise that’s surrounded me for a couple of weeks now. [My boss still seems really happy with what I'm doing, which tells me that I must not be sucking.]
This just sucks.
Oh, and if you’re feeling like this is all very familiar … it is. I just went back and re-read a bunch of the stuff from three years ago, and it’s all very eerie … coming down to the fact that I’m at the same point in the calendar as when I dropped before.
Working together with grad school is tough as hell.
I was allowed to focus on it heavily during my first year since Jessica wasn’t here in Huntsville yet… and truth be told, I don’t think I would have kept going after that first semester if she had been.
That said, once I got past the first semester, it got easier. Not the work necessarily, but rather the drive to finish it. I found that once I had the first few credits under my belt, I couldn’t quit anymore because if I did those earlier credits wouldn’t do me any good. (and I’d have had to pay a chunk of money back to my company)
There’s only about a month left in the semester and then you’ll get a break for a month. Look forward to that and it’ll be here before you know it (whether you want it to be or not)
November 14th, 2005 at 8:30 amSee, but I’m already weary now, already behind, and work is not going to get any simpler in the next month. In fact, it’s about to get a whole lot worse, which is going to make school all the harder to catch up on.
I can’t see myself doing this for four years. I just can’t.
November 14th, 2005 at 8:37 amYou may not remember, or I may never have said it in your presence, but when I was morking on my undergraduate degree I decided I was going to quit engineering. I decided, “As soon as this semester is over I am going to change my major.” At the end of the semester, I would decide, I will try it “one more time.” I “one more time”ed it through to a BS in engineering.
November 14th, 2005 at 7:41 pmBlessed Sleep
It’s amazing to me that I’ve already gotten four hours’ sleep tonight. Yeah, I was in bed around 2100 on a Monday night. Disturbing, no? This no-school thing might be good for me.
November 15th, 2005 at 1:08 amI’m dropping the class today; I couldn̵…