Grad School

(Programming note: My second year of grad school started last week.  Accordingly, updates will probably be a bit fewer and farther between, at least until I get a handle on how much time this quarter’s class is going to take up.  Plus, I figure I should actually spend some time with my wife when I’m not doing homework… However, I’m going to try to at least post something every other week, and hopefully more frequently than that, time permitting.)

“What do you do when you realize that your entire life has been a waste?”

When I was 19, I had a nice leather-covered journal with a cloth bookmark and gold page edges and everything.  It was pretty fancy, and I’m pretty sure it’s still lying around the house somewhere.  It contains exactly one entry, beginning with the above question, more or less word for word.  I couldn’t tell you specifically what else I wrote, although I remember the basic sense of it, but that first sentence has always stuck with me.

That reason is mostly because of how silly I realize I sounded.  It’s funny how trying to be profound generally just comes off as self-involved or whiny or simply melodramatic most of the time (especially when you’re 19).  Why was I trying to be like the Chinese guy from the Karate Kid?  Well, mostly because it was a nice journal, and I felt like I should write profound things in it.  Why put trivial things in such a nice journal?  That just seems like a waste!  (A blog, on the other hand…)

As I said, that one entry is the only thing in the journal.  It rambles for two or three pages, whining about this, that, and the other.  I remember that I’d just watched Chasing Amy, and was feeling like I hadn’t really, y’know, lived.  (Because that’s a totally realistic expectation at 19.)  (For the record, I’m not implying that I wanted Chasing Amy to be a model for “living”, either.  Just so we’re clear.  But there’s passion, and drama, and passionate dramatic kisses in the rain, and Seattle has lots of rain, and I was 19, I’m just saying.)  It’s the only entry because even then, I realized that I was really just whining, and whining is obnoxious and silly, not profound.

Not that knowing I’m whining necessarily prevents me from continuing to do so, sometimes at length.

And anyways, the question isn’t even really true.  It certainly wasn’t true then, and it’s even more not true now.   And I wasn’t depressed or anything, just writing down overwrought teenage angst in an attempt to sound deep.  My life was not a waste then, and it’s definitely not now.

But that question also sticks with me, not for the question itself, but for the call to arms inherent in the answer.  What do you do?  Well, you stop wasting your life, right?  How inspiring!  I do not regret the things that I have done, but those I did not do!  Of course, it’s easier said than done, but most things are, and it’s at least a good reminder.

So what brought this to mind now?  Who knows where thoughts come from?  They just appear!  Well, actually, as I noted above, my second year of grad school started last week.  Typically, you go to grad school to develop yourself, your skills, your knowledge, etc., in the pursuit of “making something of yourself”.  And typically, you’re doing it in an area you’re passionate about, or one that’ll advance your career, right?

I always get a bit awkward when someone asks me why I’m in grad school, because, to be honest, I don’t have a good answer.  Is it going to help me in my job?  No, not really.  And shifting to one of the engineering design areas that the program is geared for would be a significant career change for me.

So why am I doing it?  Well, basically because (a) I like learning (seriously, why can’t someone just pay me to go to classes and learn all the things?  You want my dream job, there you go), and (b) having a Master’s in anything generally doesn’t hurt (especially since my company varies experience requirements for job levels based on education), and (c) the company’s paying for the tuition and books, so my entire cost is pretty much just my time and effort.  And I feel bad even saying that, because everyone else I know who’s done grad school was either doing it full-time, or was sacrificing basically all their free time outside of work to do it, and my program simply doesn’t require that of me.  (As evidenced by the fact I still have time to post here.)

But having an answer that basically boils down to a shrug and a “Why not?” isn’t very satisfactory.  So am I wasting my time on this?

(This question is actually why this post is so much later than I expected it to be.  Seriously, I’ve been chipping away at this for a week, and I’ve had to update the note up top from “today” to “this week” to “last week”.  Settling on an answer to the question has been… difficult.  Maybe I just need to set myself an arbitrary deadline, like 1:37 this afternoon.  Of course, that didn’t turn out well, so maybe not…)

Some little part of me wants to say that yes, I’m wasting my time.  After all, this program isn’t really going to benefit me at work without, as noted above, a significant step sideways or even backwards in my career.  And jobs are what’s really important, right?  They’re the yardstick by which our worth as a person is measured?  That’s certainly what American culture tells us nowadays, and this little part of me has bought into that hook, line, and sinker.

However, the more I think about it, the more I don’t agree with that little part of me.  (This is how much this part has changed: when I originally started working on this, that was not going to be the conclusion.)  

Part of the reason is that I think the American cultural attitude towards work is profoundly unhealthy.  I’m generally not one to tell other people what to do (or at least, I try not to be) (and unless it’s telling people to stop arguing with the experts, or how to merge or drive on the freeway, or… okay, maybe I do tell other people what to do now and then), so if making work your #1 priority is what makes you happiest, and it’s not hurting others (family, etc.), then go for it!  But that’s not me, and I don’t think it’s any sort of moral failing to be content with doing my job well for as much time as I’m expected to, and then moving on with the rest of my life for the rest of the day.

(This may or may not wind up as a separate post, depending on how daring I’m feeling, but I really don’t see any moral virtue in gainful employment.  I do think it’s good for everyone to have something productive or meaningful or fulfilling to do with their days, but that doesn’t necessarily need to be “work”, especially just for the sake of work.)

So the fact that grad school isn’t necessarily going to help me with work doesn’t automatically make it a waste of time.  Cool.  It might help, though!  You never know what opportunities may lie down the road, right?  So, despite my statement up above, maybe “Why not?” isn’t the worst reason in the world.  Continuing education is a good thing, and you never know when it might come in handy.  I mean, despite not working directly in an engineering design group, my engineering degree has still been useful, so this grad school stuff might, too, right?  So there’s another part.

And the third part (because every good list has three things, as long as they don’t all mean the same thing) is that my job currently kinda sucks.  Actually, it started getting worse not quite a year and a half ago (if you know where I work, this should be a fairly trivial exercise to figure out), and has been steadily declining.  My group doesn’t really have any say in how we do our jobs any longer, and most of the interesting workload has been given to other groups (and what workload we do get to keep, our managers keep trying to screw up).

And grad school, honestly, gives me something to be excited about, and provides some intellectual stimulation.  I get way more amped up now about class and even homework than I do my job.  Don’t get me wrong, I get excited about family, and get intellectual stimulation at home, but grad school is much more work-related in terms of those things, and therefore a different category.

So no, I guess grad school isn’t a waste of time.  Yay!

I’m not sure I have a point to this, honestly.  I’m not fishing for any sort of reassurance, nor am I attempting to solicit advice (although if anyone has any groundbreaking insights, I’ll listen)(note that “Find a new job” would not actually be one.  I didn’t want to bog things down explaining why I’m still where I am, but there are reasons).  I’m also trying not to keep this from being “Fancy journal, part II”.  And this post certainly had more immediacy when it was “grad school starts today” than it does as “grad school started a week ago”.  But at this point, I’d put so much effort into this post that I didn’t want to just abandon it!

I guess maybe I just needed to work through a few things in my head.  Obviously, by working through writing this, I’ve changed my mind about a few things, so maybe writing this was the point.  And I don’t know, maybe if you strip out the details, the general outline is relatable to someone else?  After all, if one kid out of a hundred million feels that he relates, that’s great, right?

Anyways, that’s that.  If you’re still with me, thanks for reading!  But then again, you voluntarily signed up to read a blog that’s basically whatever I feel like writing about, so you can’t say you weren’t warned…