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You can't believe what I will say but is true... I enrolled in a Master's Degree in Chemical Engineering, I am fully dedicated to it and even so I don't have any free time at all. We have lots of assignments every week, I feel I don't have enough time to meet deadlines and I am always working on assignments, I don't have enough time to study. Since it started I barely went out, just once to buy printer ink cartridges during a long weekend two months ago, how sad is that... Even fully dedicated things are not going well, I need 48 hours a day to complete assignments. Just yesterday, a saturday, from 09.00 a.m to 10.00 p.m. designing a multicomponent distillation column, from 10.00 p.m. to 03.00 a.m. preparing equipment simulations in Aspen Hysys ready for another assignment. Now it is supposed that I would be working on another 3 assignments, I can't, even working all day.
If only I could sleep well... I woke up at 10. a.m. because I felt really tired and I am felling tired as well. I don't feel like doing anything, I am always stressed, I feel tachycardia, always worried about the uncertain future (will I be able to pass even 50% of courses even killing myself?) I should have asked before enrolling this hell.
How can I be barely healthy and avoid ending in a mental asylum?
You can't believe what I will say but is true... I enrolled in a Master's Degree in Chemical Engineering, I am fully dedicated to it and even so I don't have any free time at all. We have lots of assignments every week, I feel I don't have enough time to meet deadlines and I am always working on assignments, I don't have enough time to study. Since it started I barely went out, just once to buy printer ink cartridges during a long weekend two months ago, how sad is that... Even fully dedicated things are not going well, I need 48 hours a day to complete assignments. Just yesterday, a saturday, from 09.00 a.m to 10.00 p.m. designing a multicomponent distillation column, from 10.00 p.m. to 03.00 a.m. preparing equipment simulations in Aspen Hysys ready for another assignment. Now it is supposed that I would be working on another 3 assignments, I can't, even working all day.
If only I could sleep well... I woke up at 10. a.m. because I felt really tired and I am felling tired as well. I don't feel like doing anything, I am always stressed, I feel tachycardia, always worried about the uncertain future (will I be able to pass even 50% of courses even killing myself?) I should have asked before enrolling this hell.
How can I be barely healthy and avoid ending in a mental asylum?
Have you tried anything to help you sleep? There's lots of alternatives out there from practicing good sleep hygiene to all kinds of drugs that should be worth a shot to try.
Have you talked to other people in your program/classes and asked what they're doing? It helped a lot when I was in my doctorate program to bond with the other people in my class to get through it. Though I can only imagine it's not as tough as chemical engineering, support from other people going through the same thing should only help.
You may have to find something else if it's not like your dream job and what your passion is in life. If it doesn't meet that criteria you may end up having a break down at some point. You'll have to ask yourself: is having bad health and no free time worth not being in this program and whatever else that may entail (is there an alternative for you?).
My job leaves me with very little free time but I love it and it beats the hell out of not having a job. I'm a lot less healthy due to my job because it leaves me with pretty much no time to exercise (proof of that is when I lived in NC with my work week being about 35 hours per week I was doing about 3 days of good cardio per week. Now with working almost 50 hours a week sometimes, that's the stuff that got cut from my week : ( Sucks, but like I said, it beats the alternative). So once again if I didn't work, that would lead to death from a variety of ways, so definitely worth the "pain" of having to work all the time.
Last edited by Basiliximab; 12-03-2017 at 03:44 AM..
I'm only doing a bachelor's but it is so much work that I have almost no time to myself. Like you I am super stressed all the time. I wish I had constructive advice aside from "it'll be over eventually," but I don't. I'll be reading the other responses though; maybe they have some useful tips.
Engineering is tough
The key in engineering is to work smart, not hard
When I went to school ... long story short ... I had to work more than everybody else because I didn’t have as many friends as other people (didn’t stay at dorms, didn’t join a fraternity, etc.)
I remember working on a problem for several days until a guy I became friend’s with explained it to me
Now I can solve any similar problem in 5 minutes.
Maybe it doesn’t apply in your case, but keep that in mind.
The positive side is that it was like boot camp for me,
It made me much more self resilient than everybody else
You can't believe what I will say but is true... I enrolled in a Master's Degree in Chemical Engineering, I am fully dedicated to it and even so I don't have any free time at all. We have lots of assignments every week, I feel I don't have enough time to meet deadlines and I am always working on assignments, I don't have enough time to study. Since it started I barely went out, just once to buy printer ink cartridges during a long weekend two months ago, how sad is that... Even fully dedicated things are not going well, I need 48 hours a day to complete assignments. Just yesterday, a saturday, from 09.00 a.m to 10.00 p.m. designing a multicomponent distillation column, from 10.00 p.m. to 03.00 a.m. preparing equipment simulations in Aspen Hysys ready for another assignment. Now it is supposed that I would be working on another 3 assignments, I can't, even working all day.
If only I could sleep well... I woke up at 10. a.m. because I felt really tired and I am felling tired as well. I don't feel like doing anything, I am always stressed, I feel tachycardia, always worried about the uncertain future (will I be able to pass even 50% of courses even killing myself?) I should have asked before enrolling this hell.
How can I be barely healthy and avoid ending in a mental asylum?
I am aware how difficult Chem E is. Undergrads in Chem E where I went to school were cream of the crop, intellectually. Personally, I was not good enough in math and found undergrad Organic and (much worse) P Chem a drag, so not the career path for me. Know thyself
Business school while working is similar, takes maybe 30 extra hours per week plus various leaves of absence. For two years. Very few exceptions. Kiss weekends goodbye, period. The best of them will push you to the breakpoint and beyond. If you got that far, damn few break, but relationships and work and everything else do. I know of no peer who got through unscathed.
Suck it up. If you flunk out, too bad: guess you didn't belong there; it happens.
I "think" we started with 91 or 92 students, I know we ended with 83. What, just about 10% washout. Seems about right. Go talk to an advisor; I did, during the program and was told to suck it up or drop out, in so many words. I don't drop out of anything, I just doubled down and let the relationship slide instead since that had the lesser intrinsic value to me. So, sure enough, that crashed and burned and I had no time or inclination to mourn it, either. They had a point, executive level is tough and as far as gladiator academies go, that was a damn good one.
If it makes you feel better ... I’m an electrical engineer
I had to work the whole time I was in college and already explained that I didn’t have friends and had to do homework alone most of the time.
what did you expect it to be like? sunshine and cake?
didnt you choose that option because it would give you work experience and look good on the resume?
could alway drop out if you felt that free time was more important, otherwise stick with it
well, if tou finish it, there are only 40 years until retirement right?
get a fitbit to monitor sleep, heartbeeat and heart pressure, no actual use to knowing it but its a good distraction that makes you think you can control it
You can't believe what I will say but is true... I enrolled in a Master's Degree in Chemical Engineering, I am fully dedicated to it and even so I don't have any free time at all. We have lots of assignments every week, I feel I don't have enough time to meet deadlines and I am always working on assignments, I don't have enough time to study. Since it started I barely went out, just once to buy printer ink cartridges during a long weekend two months ago, how sad is that... Even fully dedicated things are not going well, I need 48 hours a day to complete assignments. Just yesterday, a saturday, from 09.00 a.m to 10.00 p.m. designing a multicomponent distillation column, from 10.00 p.m. to 03.00 a.m. preparing equipment simulations in Aspen Hysys ready for another assignment. Now it is supposed that I would be working on another 3 assignments, I can't, even working all day.
If only I could sleep well... I woke up at 10. a.m. because I felt really tired and I am felling tired as well. I don't feel like doing anything, I am always stressed, I feel tachycardia, always worried about the uncertain future (will I be able to pass even 50% of courses even killing myself?) I should have asked before enrolling this hell.
How can I be barely healthy and avoid ending in a mental asylum?
BTDT, different circumstances. Your plate is full, but you want to add free time to your plate. You can't right now. I'm sure you know the phrase, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going." Or, "Bite off more than you can chew and chew it."
You see the glass half empty right now, look at it as half full.
Overcome this mountain and you'll be proud of yourself. Worry about free time later, it'll be there.
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