why I started grad school, my trip to Europe during grad school, and why I quit grad school

I'm guessing this is what "camp" would have been like for me as a kid.  Even if I wasn't happy the entire time I was there and I was somewhat of a loner, when I look back on it this picture sums up my overall feeling about those two weeks.

As we grow up we become well aware of what is “normal” and what is the “right” thing to do.  I’m pretty sure I have spent most of my adult life wavering between making my decisions based on those rules and making my decisions based on what I, as an individual, want to do.  What I have found is that I always end up happier when I make decisions based on what I want rather than what I should do.

When I started grad school it was what I wanted to do.  I had started to feel stagnant in my career and wanted to do something that would help me advance.  While I’m not one to be fortunate enough to love what I do and make a lot of money doing it, what I have found is that I don’t hate what I do, I’m pretty good at it and I don’t have to struggle financially if I make smart choices.  I think this is the experience of the majority of the population, at least from my experience.  But here’s my fatal flaw, my reason for wanting to go to grad school is because that’s what I thought society said I should do to advance.

As I began grad school, I also took over a new responsibility at work.  It was considered a lateral movement with no pay increase but it placed me in a position to learn a lot about the company’s operations, increased visibility to executives, and in the minority of people who had a strong grasp of cross-functional information.  As the years have passed I have been fortunate enough to work closely with directors across multiple departments and create valuable business connections.  I have been able to not only build a process from the ground-up and now am working to improve those processes I created to increase efficiency all while pursuing a graduate degree.

During this time I also experienced the loss of an important relationship which made me a little more jaded and then began a relationship that has helped me find who I was was… someone who wasn’t so angry at the world.  And over time I realized grad school isn’t something that I don’t hate and am pretty good at it.  It’s something that I hate and am not good at when I am a full-time corporate employee.  So I have decided to quit grad school and I don’t think I have ever been happier.

I think what solidified the decision for me was my trip to Europe this summer.  I kind of have this love have this love hate relationship with the trip.  I loved that I had worked hard to be able to leave my job for two weeks without any loose ends and could focus on just the trip.  I loved being around other intelligent people who also work very hard to make these opportunities happen for themselves.  I loved the new perspective that trying to navigate a city and meet your basic needs when you don’t speak the language, you’ve never left your own country, and technology is not a readily available (my phone only worked with wi-fi).

 I hated not being able to meet my basic needs when confronted with this challenge. 

The thing I love the most is it made me appreciate having the time to enjoy my life.  While I was frustrated in several situations and several moments it made me even more appreciative of what makes me feel comfortable and safe.  It made me even more aware of how important my relationship with people in general is to my happiness.  I want to be able to spend more time doing what I want, spending time with the people I genuinely care about rather than what I should be doing, homework.

This week when I came back to work I found out about what could be a career changing opportunity for me with my company.  My hard work helped to prove my aptitude and business acumen to someone who is paying attention.  There is a global pricing manager position that would work with cross-functional teams across multiple regions, many of the job requirements are things I have a head start on due to my intimate knowledge of business practices unique to the company.  It would also mean big changes for E and I and it feels good to know I have her support in all of this.  But this is all a big what if scenario at this point. 

Truthfully I could easily apply and nothing come of it but at least I have my time back to do what makes me happy even if it’s not making a six figure salary.  It just seems as soon as I made the actual decision to take an indefinite break from grad school because it doesn’t make me happy is when this opportunity materialized. 

Making choices and failing are important decisions in life.  And who’s to ever deem what is success and what is failure?  I don’t think I failed at grad school.  The point was to do something to advance my career and I did.  But things don’t always turn out the way you expected.  Not only did learn about things important to my career, I also learned that my career isn’t that important to my happiness.