The Ivy Lie

A pre-med on a UC campus wrote to me this week (the response follows):

“Dear Clayton,

Thank you so much for writing your blog- I searched all over the internet for a blog that would express the way I felt, and I finally found yours. […] When I was a high school senior, I applied to all the Ivy Leagues (but was rejected from all of them) but was accepted to every campus of the University of California. At the time, I was very disappointed to not have gotten into any Ivy League, because I too had a carefully crafted resume with a 1500/1600 SAT, extra-curriculars with regional awards, and had sacrificed so many of the same things that you gave up to go to an elite college…basic things a lot of people take for granted in life such as a normal childhood and teenage social life. Those precious experiences that we really only get to experience once in life, I gave up because I had tremendous family and also personal pressure to “succeed” and go to an elite college. Because I didn’t get into the Ivies, I decided to go to the pre-med program, believing that the program would allow me to get into professional school a lot more easily and thus alleviating the academic and extracurricular pressure that has plagued me all my life. I also thought the program would be a lot easier than what I would experience at an Ivy League. It turned out to be anything but easy. My classmates were all of similar caliber (most would have attended UC Berkeley or UCLA if they didn’t come here), and grading is extremely rough with average of C. I cannot tell you how much I utterly despise my life here. Your experience really struck a chord with me- the cutthroat-ness of the place, how incredibly hard the classes are, how the work comes in massive waves that I try not to drown in…I spend literally all my time studying and I never feel good enough. My 3.7 GPA is a massive accumulation of pain and stress, and because the program is so accelerated, I will be finishing my bachelor’s degree in 2 years, because I came into college with a lot of AP units and I also took summer classes.

But at least, reading your blog has been a cathartic experience for me. I’m writing right now because its the week before finals, and I’m completely broken down right now. I’m at the end of the 2 years, but I can’t seem to push myself any further.I’m burned out beyond belief, and the worst part is that, I’ve completely lost interest in becoming a doctor. Life has become simply a matter of getting through one more day, and I’ve lost my original vision, goals, and dreams.

So I tell any prospective college student, to please not attend an accelerated pre-medical program for the “safety net” it supposedly gives. The cost is simply not worth it and you miss out on so much in terms of what college is supposed to be. My friends at average state colleges are having a great time, getting great grades, and really experience what a true college life should be.
Like you, I have a college experience that I completely regretted in every way. I also feel extremely burned out, lost, and really would appreciate any advice you could give me about the next step in life. As I pretty much made my whole decision on my goal to go to medical school, which I can’t bring myself to care about anymore, I feel completely lost. I know that a BS in biology isn’t very useful in finding a job, and hence feel even worse.

I would appreciate any advice you can offer, and thank you again so much for writing your blog, and for reading my letter.

Sincerely,
[redacted]”

And my response:
“Dear [redacted],

Thanks for writing and sharing your story. Your situation is certainly different from mine, but there are a lot of similarities as well: the stress, the burnout, the lifelong pressure to succeed. On paper, I’m sure it all made perfect sense to our parents: “I’ll give my children the best education by sending them to the best schools. And they’ll only succeed in life if I push them to work hard, be competitive, and achieve.” Sound familiar?

Except that by the end, as you say, “I’ve completely lost interest in becoming a doctor. Life has become simply a matter of getting through one more day, and I’ve lost my original vision, goals, and dreams.” This line sums up precisely how I felt I graduated. In my case, becoming a doctor was never my dream as much as it was my father’s, but nonetheless it was my main goal when I was an undergrad. But by the end, not only had I completely lost interest in pursuing medicine, but I started to forget why I had gone to college in the first place. My dad had the notion that if I studied like mad, I would build good lifelong habits that would prepare me to succeed in graduate school and later, in professional life. But honestly, nothing could be further from the truth. Very little of my college education has proven to be of any significance in the workplace, and all that studying just left me feeling weary, frustrated, and fed up with education – not exactly a recipe for real success.

This is a theme that I haven’t addressed much in my posts, but it merits further discussion. Burnout is one of the most compelling reasons not to attend a highly competitive school, and it’s quite a destructive force as well. In my humble opinion, getting a degree from a top-notch school is of no use at all if it leaves you without the desire to apply that education. For me, graduation was a bittersweet event… on the one hand, I had “made it,” but it felt like a Pyrrhic victory. And when I asked myself, “What’s next?” I didn’t have a good answer.

The first piece of advice I can give you is to take a break once you’re finished with your degree. I don’t know what your financial situation is – if you have debt, that complicates matters – or if your accelerated pre-med program requires continuous enrollment. But seriously, if you can, take a breather. It’s difficult to make rational decisions when you’re constantly under pressure, and it sounds like you’re at a major junction in your life that merits some forethought.

While you’re in school, you might consider looking for lab work as I did; there’s not a lot of it, and it doesn’t pay very well, but as a biology major you can probably find some sort of part-time position. If not, look for some sort of other work or volunteer activities, even if they’ve got nothing to do with biology or medicine. I worked every summer, as well as while taking classes during my junior and senior years, and I’m glad I did. The workplace offers its own set of challenges and difficulties, but for me, it was a welcome relief from academia and gave me the opportunity to apply my mind to something substantive. At one point, I actually dropped out of Duke for a semester to work full time, and in most respects, it was the most productive semester of my college years. I got published as a result of that lab work, and it gave me far more satisfaction than memorizing details which were of no consequence outside the course in which they were taught (and then regurgitating those factoids on exams in pursuit of another “A”). Working full-time also gave me the chance to live independently and get a taste of real adulthood, which can be pretty sweet, provided you’re prepared for it. Don’t be afraid of doing basic jobs for a little while if you can’t find something relevant to your degree. In addition to laboratory research, I worked as a waiter and a pizza delivery driver both during and after college, and it helped me interact better with “regular” people outside the Ivory Tower academic bubble, and I met a lot of interesting personalities along the way. It also gave me a solid dose of humility, which while depressing at the time, in hindsight wasn’t a bad thing. One of the realities you’ll face in the workplace is that most people won’t be able to relate to your experiences in such a challenging academic program, but you’ll still need to build professional and/or personal relationships with them… so it helps to gain some experiences away from college.

As far as long-term plans are concerned, only you can decide, but I would start by asking your school’s academic and professional advisers hard questions about job prospects, and push them to help you strategize an academic plan which will prepare you for life after college. Attend job fairs and ask employers what sort of knowledge and skills they are looking for, even if it’s not in your field. Ask them how their industry is in general – are there many jobs available? And are there many applicants for each open position? How much opportunity is there for professional growth?

In my case, I ultimately decided to bail on medicine, and later gave up on lab work and went into computer science instead. I now work as a software consultant, I’m paid well, and I get to travel and live overseas… but it required getting a second degree, and I didn’t switch gears until five years after graduating with my first diploma and a long bout of unemployment, so I regret having waited so long to change fields. My advice is that if you can’t find work after a couple months of applying for a given type of role, then the prospects won’t be good and you should consider other options, even if it means having to go back to school and study something else. If you’re passionate about medicine, I won’t tell you not to follow that path – the world certainly needs more doctors and there’s no doubt you can make a good living working in that field – but bear in mind that you have plenty of other options as well. If you can at least take a more relaxed approach to your studies, give it serious consideration. And if you think another school would offer a better overall experience, do consider transferring. It’s not the end of the world if you do, and it’s not worth sticking it out in a miserable program just to get a degree from a school with a famous name. I believe a person can make better progress after college with an “average” degree, a good attitude, and a real desire to learn and grow, than with an “elite” degree and a lot of burnout and emotional baggage.

In general, I would advise that you put some focus on cultivating friendships if you haven’t done so already, and try to meet some locals and socialize with people other than students and professors. It helps to have support from others, and having good social skills can be very, very helpful in the workplace. (I’m not great at socializing or making friends, but I keep working at it.) I would also suggest investing some time in hobbies and pastimes that you enjoy. For me, these passions were/are music, photography, writing, and foreign language. The first three haven’t materialized into anything professionally (not yet at least), but learning other languages has opened doors to work assignments abroad and has enriched my travel experiences as well. It’s hard to predict what will be useful and what won’t, but it can’t hurt to have a diverse skill set, so don’t be afraid of sampling a lot of different courses and trying things you had never considered before. The more limited your scope of knowledge, the more restricted you’ll be in the sorts of jobs you apply for, and the more vulnerable you’ll be to downturns in a particular industry. It’s always good to have a backup plan.

Personally, I would also recommend a study-abroad program if you have the opportunity. Traveling and living amidst another culture can be a really eye-opening and enriching experience, and may give you some additional perspective when it comes to making big decisions. It’s also just plain fascinating, can be loads of fun, and will undoubtedly leave you with some great memories and awesome stories to tell.

I won’t lie; you may be in for more hardship and frustration after you graduate, and there’s no regaining those lost childhood years, but you can make up for them. For me, the first several years after college were among the most depressing of my life, and the reality is that adulthood eventually demands self-sufficiency, so there’s no way out but forward. (The end of college is really just the beginning of adulthood, so the relief of “being done” that comes with graduating may be short-lived.) For me, probably the harshest realization was that my top-tier degree was no guarantee of anything professionally, which is what prompted me to start this blog. But fear not: there are plenty of opportunities out there, provided you cultivate a set of skills that people need and can find a passion for the work that you do. This isn’t necessarily an easy task, and it’s not something you’ll learn in a classroom, but there is hope and fulfillment aplenty to be found if you stay flexible and remember that the answers you seek may lie far outside the cloistered walls of your university campus.

I wish you all the best in your college studies and your future career, and hope that this email proves to be of use to you.

Cheers,
Clayton”