Day 1, Week 0, Year 2

Day 1, Week 0, Year 2 of grad school. I get the usual bemused expressions when I say week 0. Fall quarter in UCSD traditionally begins with a week 0 which primarily involves convocation and first day of classes. Most classes however, officially begin in week 1. This year has begun with a week -1 (of course, unofficially) with inordinate amounts of time spent on job prep along with research work for this year.

Irrespective of the work, I already feel the time crunch, even before the quarter begins — quite unnerving. But this is also the point, where I need to figure out the work-life balance that I so much appreciated interning at Salesforce. It’s understandable that in grad school, research work and grad school study seeps into every corner of my life. But I would want to keep aside some time in a week for my personal enrichment — fitness, fun and healthy living.

As I begin a new year, I want to remind myself of a couple of valuable aspects of year 1.

The hardest part of doing something is taking the first step. The first step into something unknown, unformed, and vague is scary as hell, but just take that small step that means a lot. If it’s sending a mail, do it. If it’s printing the current resume for review and later editing, do it. If it’s starting on a homework problem, do it. The right time is now.
Prioritize heavily. TA, research, courses, job hunt, social stuff, life, health, fitness — blah,blah and blah. There’s always one or the other thing. It’s important to always identify what’s the most important thing you should be doing right now. It’s easy to get inundated in too many to-dos that you start choosing the low-hanging fruits. I have done that many a time, but eventually, I need to start on the meaty, important tasks which take considerable time &/ effort.
Love what you do. If you don’t have interest in what you are reading, studying, working on, the point is moot. Precious time, and you aren’t doing what you like to do? It’s time to evaluate. Do note that it’s not always possible with the mundane/administrative work that needs to be done.
Fail big. The ambiguity that you deal with when you fail is unparalleled. Some of my experiments over the past year have failed miserably. But I learnt a great deal from them.
Focus. Such a simple, yet complex word. Multi-tasking is good, but has the high context-switch overhead. It’s all down the drain if you multi-task too much.
Sleep. Coffee is basically getting into the swirl of the law of diminishing returns. After a point of time, your body just gives up. No more coffee will help. Consistent (or almost consistent) sleep cycle is necessary.
Grad school is not a rat-race, thankfully. No more of the competition, or the pressure to do well relative to others. It’s all about extending your knowledge, improving yourself, bootstrapping everyday; No one else matters in this improvement cycle, unless they are present in the form of support.
Separate the wheat from the chaff. I can’t believe an year has flown by, already. It brings about a panic about all the things I could have done and I did not (and all the things I should be doing right now, instead of writing this post). But I find this valuable. It allows me to introspect and retrospect, providing me reinforcement on great takeaways to continue/enforce this year. Do what you find valuable. If there are people who bring you down, cut them out. Seek to do what is relevant, while staying in the relevant.
Health and fitness. The one aspect of my life before grad school that soon became absent was regular visits to gym. I went extremely sporadically. I cared not much about the food I ate. And it showed visible effects with my health gone for a toss in my last quarter. I definitely need to work on this.
Lastly, don’t go AWOL. It’s a murky hole that has no bottom. Around April, I disconnected from the world, burned out, injured and stressed. I should have asked for help; I should have just talked to someone. Mere talking to a close childhood friend of mine rejuvenated me. Attending the social hours helped too. Disconnecting helps when you want peace, and not when you are too f-ing stressed to the extent that you will explode.

A lot of what I wrote previously still holds. My biggest goal for the year is to provide ample space and time for creativity as I learnt a lot from failures and successes. I hope to find some form of clarity in what I want to pursue further in my life. Until then, thrive!