Last week, I made the decision to withdraw from my graduate program and did so on Friday after several meetings and obtaining umpteen signatures (yes, I realize that I will not be receiving a tuition refund). It's a decision I had been struggling with for a while, and just finally concluded that the path I was on wasn't the right one for me. It's not that I couldn't handle the work, it's just that I wasn't really all that happy; and finally saw the light on a dream that I've been chasing for seven years now. I guess it comes down to that you can want something so badly that you block out everything else. Then, once you get it, your eyes are able to see the other things you've been missing. I think this is what happened to me; and now I've got a world of possibility ahead of me. In all honesty, I'm excited and scared to death all at the same time.
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5 comments:
Don't know if it helps, but I did pretty much the same thing five years ago, and it was the best decision I ever made. I walked away after 4 years in a PhD program, no MS, no money back. I didn't even fill out the forms - just left my keys on my advisor's desk and stopped showing up. It was terrifying at the time, but 5 years out, I can't believe I stayed as long as I did. It is really easy of falling into the trap of staying only because you've put so much time in - good for you for getting out!
Wow. That's a tough decision to have made. I've got a few friends who did that. The majority of them are quite sure that it was very much the right thing to do. You know one of them - she got her hair done same time as you on the day of my wedding :-)
Good for you for realizing when you need to make a change!
I can't imagine how scary it must be right now, but being miserable was obviously not the answer!
Well, Ed quit, so you could always come back to WI and be an ART supervisor!
But seriously, you gotta do whatever makes you happy. You should give me a call sometime soon since you should have some more time on your hands.
Oh my word woman! That is a big decision. Wow.
Knowing what you don't want is just as important as knowing what you do want and it takes just as long to find that out. You can push and push for what you want and then you have it and it just doesn't work. It's so hard to admit that to yourself.
You need to be happy and enjoy life, that is just as important as everything else. If you can't be happy, how can you enjoy what you're doing? I'm so excited for you!
I got to that point -- the point of needing to just stop pushing and re-evaluate. It was in the middle of my fourth semester in grad school, I just stopped going to classes for a week and "went to the mountaintop." It was over 4 years after I made the decision to go to grad school, and I had to go back and ask why. I ended up continuing on, but it's not the right decision for everyone. It's hard to separate the fear of not being "good enough" or "tough enough" from the decision making process, cuz it's not about that.
Best wishes for your continuing happiness!
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